Introduction: Environmental risks induce the likelihood that changes in the surroundings will have a negative impact on ecological or socio-economic systems. This includes effects on people's lives, means of subsistence, health, and well-being, as well as investments in economic, social, and cultural assets, infrastructure, services, ecosystems, and species. Every business, every industry, in every region of the world, faces variable degrees of climate risk. As climate change quickens, this risk also increases. Aim: This study delves into the theoretical fundamentals of climate change risks and global environmental governance, through a rigorous systematic review and bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature. It therefore captures main theories, concepts, research directions, authors, research organizations/ institutes, countries, co-citation history, that are extracted from a large sample of scientific articles, books, and book chapters available in Web of Science and Scopus. Method: The research methodology is based on a rigorous systematic review of the relevant literature and a proficient bibliometric analysis. We extracted information from 1,586 documents available in Scopus and 1,024 documents from Web of Science (articles, books, book chapters). This large amount of data is being processed in VOSviewer. The fundamental search and further extraction were made based on the following keywords: „climate”, „policy”, „risks”, „global”, „environment”, and „governance”. Findings: The co-occurrence map resulting after processing the Scopus data entails that climate change, environmental policy, sustainability, governance, and adaptive management were the main issues, concepts and theoretical groundings approached in recent studies published on this topical subject. If we analyse the sample of scientific documents extracted from the Web of Science, we note that governance/ management becomes even more relevant in the study of climate-change risks, together with resilience, adaptation, vulnerability, uncertainty, and sustainability/ sustainable development. Originality and value: The study undertaken allows for the development of a comprehensive and rigorous conceptual framework on climate change risks and global environmental governance, focusing on the role of laws, practices, and organizations that guide efforts to safeguard the environment worldwide