Three Decades on Renewable Climate Policy: A Bibliometric Analysis (abstract)

Global climate change is having observable effects on the environment and for this reason is driving the promotion of renewable climate policies (RCPs). But no doubt this is a problem that will not be solved easily. Precisely for this reason, this paper aims to contribute an overview of RCPs through a bibliometric approach. In this analysis, Web of Science database was used interrogating specific key-words on a period of thirty years. Through the study of the literature, four main topic areas have been identified and, for each of them, a research question has been defined respectively: What is the annual trend of publications and which are the most cited? What about the leading journals and most recognized authors that publish the big-gest number of papers on analyzed issues? On renewable climate policy which are the most involved institutions and countries? What are the most common co-citations and keywords? The direction of the research is to answer these four research questions so as to have an assessment concerning bibliographic expertise on the theme of RCPs. The study showed that the interest in RCPs has grown strongly over the years and that the leading countries in the field have been the USA and the People's Republic of China, followed by Europe. This review can help the researchers but also for practitioners to understand the current state of development and also where research is missing. It can also support the identification of new lines of application and the development of better policy instruments towards climate goals.