Climate change and European leadership: A sustainable role for Europe?

Book abstract:

This book originated with a project entitled 'Strategies for European leadership of international climate change and sustainability regimes', which was sponsored by the European Commission. The project, conducted during and after the period of the Kyoto negotiations, was established to explore the European role in global efforts to tackle climate change and wider issues of sustainable development, focusing on the idea that the EU should play a leadership role in its position as one of the major parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. It analyses European efforts to implement and secure global action on climate change and internal EU policies and negotiating positions and outcomes. The underlying theoretical disputes that have led to a wide range of diverging standpoints within the EU are also examined. Overall, the successes and failures of EU policy on climate change and related aspects of sustainability are considered, together with the relationship between internal and external dimensions, the scope for the EU to adopt more effective leadership roles and the ways in which it might best do so.

Chapters include: Climate change, leadership and the EU; The complicated development of EU climate policy; The role of the EU in climate negotiations; Perceptions of the EU's role; The EU in international environmental regimes and the Energy Charter Treaty; Socio-economics of policy formation and choices; The economics of coalition formation; Issue linkages to the sustainability agenda; Economic dimensions of the Kyoto Protocol; Competence and subsidiarity; Emission reductions in EU countries; Implementing EU commitments under Kyoto; Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the EU; Leadership scenarios; and Implementing European leadership. Contributors are drawn from a number of European research institutes. The editors argue that only Europe can lead the next phase of action, but that it needs to change substantially if it is going to do so effectively.