Public Sector Accountability Challenges in Emerging Climate Governance: Seeking Consequentiality Through a Theoretical Common Ground

In the interdisciplinary debate surrounding climate action effectiveness, two main eras emerge. The first, from Kyoto Protocol Signature to 2015, mainly focused on understanding governance schemes within the nascent transnational climate regime; the second, from 2015—the Paris Agreement and the adoption of UN SDGs—onwards, is more centred on accountability challenges arising from novel arrangements required to deal with climate change. This paper provides a theoretical examination of the role of the public sector in relation to climate governance and accountability, aiming to establish consequentiality between them. For serving the scope of the study, a scoping review has been conducted, involving a combination of keywords related to (i) the research domain, (ii) the key concept of the analysis and (iii) the context. Sixteen studies were ultimately selected based on predefined criteria and their alignment with the research scope. Insights from various disciplines underscored the necessity of collaborative governance schemes in climate actions, alongside the inadequacy of current approaches in addressing ensuing accountability challenges. The legitimacy theory, embracing democratic notions, emerges as both an appropriate theoretical frame for the analysis and a potential theoretical foundation to develop and explore mutually beneficial strategies. Shortcomings in governance are a significant obstacle to the campaign against climate change, which in turn suffers a lack of accountability. We thus need to dive into a ‘third era’ devoted to developing coherent accountability tools. This study argues for the imperative of the public sector assuming a proactive role in collaborative climate governance, advocating for robust and universally accepted accountability frameworks grounded in broad legitimacy.