Centering non-Western climate change perspectives for transformative public policy

Across the landscape of climate governance and policy, a striking imbalance persists in the recognition and integration of non-Western perspectives. The communities most affected by climate change—those in the Global South, Indigenous territories, and small island states—are custodians of deep, context-specific environmental and adaptation knowledge. Yet, dominant climate policy remains heavily influenced by technocratic, market-based, and Eurocentric paradigms, often sidelining the intricate, place-based strategies that have enabled vulnerable communities to persist through environmental fluctuations for generations. Recent research highlights how mainstream adaptation frameworks marginalize these communities: Indigenous peoples, for example, protect much of the planet’s biodiversity and land, but receive less than 1% of direct global climate finance. The failure to adequately value or harness these non-Western systems of knowledge contributes to structural inequities within climate governance and diminishes the effectiveness of global climate responses.Efforts to address climate change have thus far centered on scientifically driven emissions reduction, efficiency, and growth models propagated by institutions in the Global North. While international platforms such as the IPCC recognize the urgency of the crisis, they rarely challenge their epistemic foundations, resulting in the continued prioritization of reductionist, “one-size-fits-all” solutions that minimize or ignore historical power imbalances, colonial legacies, and socio-cultural dimensions of climate risk. Alternative frameworks emerging from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, and Indigenous contexts put forth holistic, relational, and justice-oriented approaches to climate adaptation, finance, and loss and damage—yet these models remain underrepresented in both scholarship and decision-making processes. There is growing momentum calling for a genuinely pluriversal approach to climate policy that values diverse ways of knowing and being, in service of equity and resilience.This Research Topic aims to bridge the gap between mainstream climate policy paradigms and the wealth of non-Western, context-specific knowledge embedded in communities most impacted by climate change. The goal is to interrogate, critique, and move beyond the dominance of Western scientific and policy frameworks by highlighting policy-relevant contributions of Indigenous, Global South, and other marginalized perspectives. We seek to explore critical questions: What would climate policy look like if it truly reflected the diversity of the world’s knowledge systems? How can we reform adaptation, mitigation, finance, and loss and damage practices to center justice and plurality? What methodologies will ensure knowledge integration is mutually respectful, non-extractive, and transformative? By addressing these questions, this Research Topic aims to foster the emergence of new policy pathways anchored in principles of justice, solidarity, and epistemic diversity.The focus of this Research Topic is on policy-relevant research, theoretical analyses, methodological innovation, and practice-based insights that critically engage with non-Western perspectives on climate change and their implications for public policy. Submissions should situate their inquiries in relation to the enduring dominance of Eurocentric models and the urgent need for plural, decolonial, and justice-oriented approaches. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, methodological, or practice-based, and should advance understanding of how integrating diverse knowledge systems can reshape climate policy.To gather further insights in non-Western climate policy and knowledge integration, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Epistemological foundations of climate knowledge and challenges to knowledge legitimacy- Integration of Indigenous and local knowledge in climate adaptation and policy practice- Regional perspectives from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and small island developing states- Community-based adaptation strategies, traditional stewardship, and locally led adaptation finance- Energy transitions, just transition, and critiques of mitigation projects affecting Indigenous lands- Conceptualizing and valuing non-economic losses, including culture, spirituality, and heritage- Reform of climate finance mechanisms and the redefinition of “bankable” projects- Participatory, decolonizing, and co-productive research methodologies- Storytelling, oral history, and creative arts as methods of knowledge affirmation- Ethical challenges in cross-cultural and cross-epistemic collaborations- Visions of pluriversal climate justice and the role of education, advocacy, and movement-building in governance transformation Topic editors: Denis Ivanov, Kang LIU, Armindo Dos Santos De Sousa Teodósio, Ksenia Gerasimova Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79945/centering-non-western-climate-change-perspectives-for-transformative-public-policy