12. The Challenge of the Environment, Energy, and Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Vogler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
International Dimension ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
International Climate ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the European Union's external environmental policy, with particular emphasis on the challenge faced by the EU in exercising leadership in global environmental governance and in the development of the climate change regime. It first considers the international dimension of the EU environmental policy as well as the issue of sustainable development before discussing the EU's efforts to lead the negotiation of an international climate regime up until the 2015 Paris conference. It then explores how the different energy interests of the member states have been accommodated in order to sustain European credibility. It also looks at the question of climate and energy security in the EU and concludes with an assessment of the factors that determine the success or failure of the EU in climate diplomacy, including those that relate to coordination and competence problems peculiar to the EU as a climate negotiator.

The Transformative Capability of Transparency in Global Environmental Governance

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ciplet ◽  
Kevin M. Adams ◽  
Romain Weikmans ◽  
J. Timmons Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Climate Finance ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Governance Architecture

We develop and apply a new theoretical framework for assessing the transformative capability of transparency in environmental governance. Our framework suggests that as norms related to transparency are recognized and translated into accountability mechanisms, and as these mechanisms are complied with, effects cascade and substantially influence the ability of transparency to transform relationships of inequality. Utilizing the case of climate finance in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, we find that while a variety of norms underpinning transparency are recognized within the governance architecture, their translation into accountability mechanisms has been weak, and information disclosed by countries is often opaque. This suggests that a focus on enhanced transparency is unlikely to be sufficient for realizing a climate regime that is adequate and equitable. Moreover, transparency should be seen as a terrain of political conflict over the conditions of inequality, employed differently by various coalitions to benefit their respective interests.

scholarly journals Historic Context of European Union Leadership in Climate Change Mitigation

2017 ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Shatokha
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation Policy ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Change Mitigation ◽  
The Eu ◽  
International Climate Change

The role of European Union in defining of the international climate change mitigation policy was studied in the historic context of overcoming the differences in the approaches to reaching the sustainable development targets among the EU, the USA, China and some other influential countries. It has been shown that currently the processes of climate policy definition became more polycentric than in 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed. The ability to adjust to a new context, to build coalitions and to reach compromise with the wide range of international actors has been crucial for maintaining the EU’s influence on definition of the international climate change mitigation policy. Despite not always supportive internal and external factors, during a quarter of century the EU has managed to maintain its leadership and many times helped to enhance the ambition of global climatic targets by establishing the high level of own commitments and implementing relevant policy instruments. The EU and its members played a decisive role in ensuring of the non-interruptive international climate action during implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and in setting of the Paris Agreement which will define climate regime after 2020. Mitigation of climate change is a complicated task not only in terms of technology and socio-economic aspects but also with respect to policy implementation. Therefore the EU leadership in this sphere remains very important.

Climate Change Law and Policy in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Bogojević
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Geological Storage ◽  
Passenger Cars ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Change Framework ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Energy Package

This chapter is concerned with EU’s climate change law and its impact on climate change action at a global level. It investigates whether the international climate change regime ‘tightens’ its own standards so as to match EU climate change law. The corpus of EU climate change law is codified in the Climate and Energy Package, which aims to provide a comprehensive and integrated climate change framework. It includes measures promoting the use of renewable energy, specifying and thus helping to monitor and reduce greenhouse gases from fuel, setting standards for new passenger cars, establishing a framework for the geological storage of carbon dioxide, outlining the effort of Member States to reduce greenhouse gases to meet the 2020 commitments, as well as revising the EU emissions trading regime (ETS).

Filling in for Governments? The Role of the Private Actors in the International Climate Regime

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
State Actor ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Private Actors

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change abandons the Kyoto Protocol’s paradigm of binding emissions targets and relies instead on countries’ voluntary contributions. However, the Paris Agreement encourages not only governments but also sub-national governments, corporations and civil society to contribute to reaching ambitious climate goals. In a transition from the regulated architecture of the Kyoto Protocol to the open system of the Paris Agreement, the Agreement seeks to integrate non-state actors into the treaty-based climate regime. In 2014 the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Peru and France created the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (and launched the Global Climate Action portal). In December 2019, this portal recorded more than twenty thousand climate-commitments of private and public non-state entities, making the non-state venues of international climate meetings decisively more exciting than the formal negotiation space. This level engagement and governments’ response to it raises a flurry of questions in relation to the evolving nature of the climate regime and climate change governance, including the role of private actors as standard setters and the lack of accountability mechanisms for non-state actions. This paper takes these developments as occasion to discuss the changing role of private actors in the climate regime.

Innovativeness and Paralysis in International Climate Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Private Actors

AbstractThis article describes the challenges of using the constrained tools of international law to negotiate a sustainable framework to address climate change. It sets out to show how the particularities of the problem have led to creative and innovative solutions expanding the borders of international law. To this end, the article discusses carbon market mechanisms, the compliance regime of the Kyoto Protocol, and the emerging framework to create incentives to reduce land-based emissions in developing countries. These examples illustrate that the recognition of the role of sub-national and private entities in mitigating climate change has had significant impact on the rules of the climate regime. But the article also asserts that the un process, while recognizing the role of private actors, is still inadequately equipped to involve non-state actors in a meaningful way. The climate regime therefore challenges the traditional thinking about interstate relationships. No longer solely a matter for international environmental law, contemporary environmental governance has become a global affair, which makes the lens of transnational law a useful tool to think about these issues in practice in a more intellectually fruitful and relevant way. This article thereby provides a snapshot of the type of issues and discussion that readers of this journal can look forward to in the years to come.

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