The Paris Agreement on climate change adopted in December 2015 reflects EU policy objectives to large extent. To find an explanation, we develop a general framework that incorporates both structural ...and actor-/process-related factors, paying particular attention to negotiation strategy and diplomacy. On this basis, we argue that the high level of EU goal achievement in Paris resulted from the interplay of (1) evolving international structures, (2) effective EU strategy fitting these structures and domestic politics, and (3) favourable situational circumstances. While the EU arguably pushed others to their limits, downscaled ambitions also meant that it accepted a Paris Agreement that is insufficient by itself and needs to be strengthened quickly. The application of our conceptual framework to the Paris Agreement demonstrates its added value and that it can build the basis of a fresh programme of work comparing the EU's performance in international institutions/negotiations across time and policy fields.
Advancing literature on EU international climate strategy, this article offers a fresh and comprehensive assessment of the EU's international leadership on climate change. Conceptually, it provides a ...framework for systematic analysis of different facets of exemplary and diplomatic leadership taking into account key framework conditions. Empirically, we trace the achievements and challenges of the EU's climate leadership since the early 1990s, with emphasis on contemporary developments. We find that the EU has successfully adapted its climate leadership to evolving challenges over time. However, intensified climate geopolitics has reinforced demand for the EU to enhance its capabilities for a proactive 'grand climate strategy'. Grand strategizing would require coordination of EU institutions and EU member states at highest political levels. In addition to facilitating the maintenance of the achievements so far, it could provide for a stronger integration of domestic and international climate policy and across other policy fields and fora.
This article investigates the stringency of EU climate and energy governance along the soft-hard continuum as a key determinant of its ability to achieve its ambitions. It introduces four criteria ...for a systematic and differentiated assessment of the bindingness/stringency of legislative instruments and governance frameworks, namely: (1) formal legal status, (2) the nature of the obligations (substantive—procedural), (3) their precision and prescriptiveness, and (4) the means for effecting accountability and effective implementation. The application of this assessment framework to the EU’s Climate and Energy Policy Framework for 2030 in comparison with the preceding 2020 Framework and the international Paris Agreement on climate change demonstrates the added value of this approach. The focus is on regulations, adopted in 2018, regarding greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy (RE), and energy efficiency as well as the surrounding framework for planning, reporting, monitoring, and enforcement. The EU’s 2030 Framework scores high on the four criteria. Despite implementing the comparatively soft Paris Agreement, it does not fall behind the stringency of the 2020 Framework, as the abandoning of binding national targets for RE is balanced by strengthened obligations to prepare national plans, long-term strategies, and regular progress reports, as well as the enhanced monitoring and supervisory powers of the European Commission. While actual delivery will not least depend on how the Commission will use its established and newly acquired powers and tools, the 2030 Framework reinforces EU interest in strengthening international climate governance under the Paris Agreement.
This article analyses the development of the mix of EU climate policy instruments and the level of climate policy integration (CPI) in the twenty-first century. Complementing established criteria of ...ambition and stringency, analysis of the instrument mix and CPI enables a fuller assessment of the transformational potential of EU climate governance. We argue that both have significantly advanced towards matching the 'super-wicked' nature of the climate challenge, although important gaps and challenges remain in addressing all relevant sectors, barriers and drivers. First, EU climate governance has 'thickened' through a stepwise layering of various economic, regulatory, procedural, and informational instruments. Second, this thickening has gone hand in hand with an expansion and strengthening of CPI. The European Green Deal promises to further complement the instrument mix and to universalise and prioritise CPI, but major initiatives remain to be proposed and realised for the Green Deal to propel the needed comprehensive transformation.
The European steel industry must achieve deep greenhouse gas emission reductions to become climate neutral by 2050. New business models are often proposed as one of the key solutions but are mostly ...addressed in general terms, without elaborating on or systematically analyzing how these new business models are actually linked to specific mitigation measures or strategies. In this paper, we assess when and to what extent different emission reduction strategies in the EU steel industry have implications for business model innovation. Through a review of 42 recent publications on industrial decarbonization, we identify 9 types of decarbonization strategies for steelmaking and their emission reduction potential. The strategies achieve emission reductions through material efficiency, emission efficiency, or a combination of both. For each strategy, we analyze the need for incremental or radical changes in business models on the basis of a thorough reading of the business model literature. Our findings show that EU steel firms can pursue several strategies to decarbonize without having to radically innovate their business models. Importantly, material efficiency strategies, arguably key to decarbonization, imply more radical changes to business models than emission efficiency strategies. Our study is a first contribution to the systematic assessment of industrial decarbonization strategies from a business model perspective. It is also an attempt to bring more rigor to the understanding of the role of business models in industrial decarbonization.
The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and the global response to it will co-determine the future of climate policy. The recovery packages responding to the impacts of the pandemic may either help to ...chart a new sustainable course, or they will further cement existing high-emission pathways and thwart the achievement of the Paris Agreement objectives. This article discusses how international climate governance may help align the recovery packages with the climate agenda. For this purpose, the article investigates five key governance functions through which international institutions may contribute: send guidance and signals, establish rules and standards, provide transparency and accountability, organize the provision of means of implementation, and promote collective learning. Reflecting on these functions, the article finds that the process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), together with other international institutions, could promote sustainable recovery in several ways.
The incoming UK presidency of the Conference of the Parties (COP) should urge Parties to present transformative sustainable stimulus packages alongside more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) at the postponed Glasgow Climate Conference (COP 26).
Specific principles and criteria for sustainable recovery should be adopted. A coalition of interested governments should work through institutions such as G20 to enable swift action even before COP 26.
The Glasgow Conference should establish a process to review the consistency of recovery packages with the Paris Agreement and their implementation, to support their sustainability and promote policy learning.
Developed countries and international financial institutions should renew their climate finance commitments, and work towards an increased long-term finance objective in the context of greening recovery packages.
At COP 26 governments could take stock of the 'Paris-compatibility' of international recovery support and adopt further guidance as necessary.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.
It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Through detailed and
wide-ranging analysis, the ...Handbook on European Union Climate Change Policy and
Politics provides a critical assessment of current and emerging challenges facing
the EU in committing to and delivering increasingly ambitious climate policy
objectives. Highlighting the importance of topics such as finance and investment,
litigation, ‘hard to abate’ sectors and negative emissions, it offers an up-to-date
exploration of the complexities of climate politics and policy making.
This article develops a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of the interaction between international institutions as a first step towards building a theory of international interaction. ...It examines how international institutions may exert causal influence on each other's development and effectiveness and suggests that four general causal mechanisms can elucidate the distinct routes through which influence travels from one institution to another. Institutional interaction can thus rely on transfer of knowledge, commitments established under an institution, behavioural effects of an institution, and functional linkage of the ultimate governance targets of the institutions involved. The article also puts forward hypotheses about the likely effects of specific types of institutional interaction for governance within the international system. The causal mechanisms and types of interaction are mutually exclusive models that help analyse real-world interaction situations. They may also serve as a basis for the systematic analysis of more complex interaction situations.
In this article, we develop a comprehensive framework for assessing the effectiveness dimension of the EU's performance in international institutions, consisting of three elements: (1) the quality of ...the EU's policy objectives; (2) EU engagement in the negotiations, including its fit with the international constellation of power and interests; and (3) goal achievement. We apply this assessment framework to two cases with two phases each: (1) the negotiations on the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on genetic resources to the Convention on Biological Diversity and (2) the negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change toward the 2009 Copenhagen and 2011 Durban climate summits. The analysis demonstrates that the assessment framework (1) facilitates a more complete and richer appreciation of EU effectiveness in international institutions than the established understanding of effectiveness as goal achievement and (2) allows us to start to systematically explore the interaction between the framework's three components.
This article investigates the shortsightedness or myopia of recent climate and energy policy (CEP) in the EU. To this end, it develops and applies a measurement tool of short-termism composed of four ...key criteria: (1) the reflection of science-based long-term thinking in the policy process and its output; (2) the degree to which mid-term greenhouse gas emission targets and accompanying policies align with science-based long-term objectives; (3) the stringency of the legislation; and (4) its adaptability. We use these criteria to assess the levels of short-termism of the EU’s 2020 and 2030 CEP frameworks and the (still evolving) European Green Deal (EGD). Overall, we find that the level of myopia of EU CEP has fluctuated and has advanced far less than the development of the nominal mid-term emission targets might suggest. The EGD’s 55% emission reduction target for 2030 only constitutes a return to the levels of alignment with science-based long-term objectives existing in the 2020 Package (making good on the regression of the 2030 Framework). It is primarily due to the maturing of long-term thinking and a ratcheting mechanism, that EU climate policy under the EGD can be considered less myopic than the 2020 Package (although the assessment remains preliminary pending the adoption of further implementing legislation). These findings lay the ground for future research that not only investigates reasons for the general myopia of (EU) climate policy, but also the drivers of the fluctuations over time.
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