Abstract
Justice and responsibility are central notions shaping the international climate negotiations. However, countries have different perspectives on how to translate these concepts into solutions for climate change. In this process, actors such as the European Union (EU) play a central role, by trying to persuade other large greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters to take on their (historical) responsibilities and by supporting developing countries. At the same time, China and India have become central actors in international climate negotiations. Due to their rapid economic growth and rising GHG emissions, their climate action is crucial for achieving global goals, while their historical emissions are very different from those of Western countries. To shed light on the EU’s perspective on climate justice, and the particular role of China and India therein, this article analyses Members of European Parliament’s (MEPs) narratives in plenary debates on foreign climate policy between 1996 and 2019. MEPs’ views contribute to shaping the EU’s position on the topic, but also provide useful insights into the political dynamics of the debate. The paper finds that climate justice is mentioned in less than half of the MEPs’ speeches, but that its salience increased over time and became more diverse in terms of different dimensions of climate justice. We also uncover that MEPs’ positions on China and India evolved with the rise in their emissions, becoming increasingly critical over time. However, there is a significant variance amongst political groups’ positions, between those on the right and the left end of the political spectrum.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
EP plenary speeches are available on the European Parliament’s website.
Code availability
The coding scheme is available in the annex.
Parts of the collected and partially translated EP plenary speeches were also used for other analyses (Petri & Biedenkopf 2021) but the climate justice specific coding of those speeches, on which this article is based, has not been used elsewhere.
Notes
Full names of political groups are as follows: Group of the European United Left (GUE); Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL); the Green Group (Greens); Group of the European Radical Alliance (ERA); Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA); Group of the Party of European Socialists (PES); the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D); Group of the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Party (ELDR); Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE); the European People's Party Group (EPP); Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats (EPP-ED); European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR); Union for Europe Group (UFE); Union for Europe of the Nations Group (UEN); Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations (I-EDN); Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD); Independence/Democracy Group (IND/DEM); Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group (EFD); Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group (EFDD); Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty Group (ITS); Europe of Nations and Freedom Group (ENF); NI (Non-attached members); Technical Group of Independent Members (TDI).
It is important to note the variance in total number of coded statements per political group. Out of the total 135 coded statements the majority comes from EPP and S&D MEPs (EPP: 48, S&D: 25). The smaller groups are respectively represented to a lesser extent (ALDE: 7, GUE/NGL: 6, ECR: 10, EFDD: 7, ITS/ENF: 7, NIs/TDI: 11), except for the Greens who are relatively overrepresented (14).
References
Andrew R, Peters G (2021) The global carbon project’s fossil CO2 emissions dataset. figshare. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16729084.v1
Bäckstrand K, Elgström O (2013) The EU’s role in climate change negotiations: from leader to ‘leadiator.’ J Eur Publ Policy 20(10):1369–1386. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2013.781781
Biedenkopf K (2015) The European Parliament in EU external climate governance. In: Stavridis S, Irrera D (eds) The European Parliament and its international relations. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 92–108
Biedenkopf K, Petri F (2021) The European External Action Service and EU Climate Diplomacy: coordinator and supporter in Brussels and beyond. Eur Foreign Aff Rev 26(1):71–86
Burns C (2019) In the eye of the storm? The European Parliament, the environment and the EU’s crises. J Eur Integr 41(3):311–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2019.1599375
Burns C (2021) The European Parliament. In: Jordan A, Gravey V (eds) Environmental policy in the EU Actors, institutions and processes, 4th edn. Abingdon, Routledge, pp 128–146
Burns C, Carter N, Worsfold N (2012) Enlargement and the environment: the changing behaviour of the European Parliament. J Common Market Stud 50(1):54–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2011.02212.x
Buzogány A, Ćetković S (2021) Fractionalized but ambitious? Voting on energy and climate policy in the European Parliament. J Eur Publ Policy 28(7):1038–1056. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2021.1918220
Carter N (2013) Greening the mainstream: party politics and the environment. Environ Polit 22(1):73–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2013.755391
Carter N, Ladrech R, Little C, Tsagkroni V (2018) Political parties and climate policy: a new approach to measuring parties’ climate policy preferences. Party Politics 24(6):731–742. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068817697630
Delreux T, Burns C (2019) Parliamentarizing a politicized policy: understanding the involvement of the European Parliament in UN climate negotiations. Polit Governance 7(3):339–49. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v7i3.2093
European Parliament, European University Institute (2009) Building Parliament: 50 years of European Parliament history 1958–2008. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. https://doi.org/10.2861/49329
Farstad FM (2018) What explains variation in parties’ climate change salience? Party Politics 24(6):698–707. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068817693473
Forchtner B (2019) Climate change and the far right. Wires Clim Change 10(5):1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.604
Friedlingstein P et al (2021) The global carbon budget 2021, Earth System Science Data. Retrieved from: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-386/essd-2021-386.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug 2022
Hix S, Noury A, Roland G (2006) Dimensions of politics in the European Parliament. Am J Polit Sci 50(2):494–511. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00198.x
Jackson K, Bazeley P (2019) Qualitative data analysis with NVivo. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, California
Lockwood M (2018) Right-wing populism and the climate change agenda: exploring the linkages. Environ Polit 27(4):712–732. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2018.1458411
McBeth MK, Shanahan EA, Arnell RJ, Hathaway PL (2007) The intersection of narrative policy analysis and policy change theory. Policy Stud J 35(1):87–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2007.00208.x
McCright AM, Dunlap RE (2011) The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public’s views of global warming, 2001–2010. Sociol Q 52(2):155–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01198.x
McElroy G, Benoit K (2012) Policy positioning in the European Parliament. European Union Pol 13(1):150–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116511416680
Oberthür S, Dupont C (2021) The European Union’s international climate leadership: towards a grand climate strategy? J Eur Publ Policy 28(7):1095–1114. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2021.1918218
Page E (2013) Climate change justice. In: Falkner R (ed) The handbook of global climate change and environmental policy. Hoboken, New Jersey Wiley-Blackwell, pp 231–247
Petri F, Biedenkopf K (2020) Common but differentiated responsibility in international climate negotiations: the EU and its contesters. In: Johansson-Nogués E, Vlaskamp M, Barbé E (eds) European Union contested. Foreign policy in a new global context, Springer, Heidelberg, pp 35–54
Petri F, Biedenkopf K (2021) Weathering growing polarization? The European Parliament and EU foreign climate policy ambitions. J Eur Publ Policy 28(7):1057–1075. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2021.1918216
Rajamani L (2013) Differentiation in the emerging climate regime. Theor Inquiries Law 14(1):151–171
Raube K, Müftüler-Baç M, Wouters J (eds) (2019) Parliamentary cooperation and diplomacy in EU external relations. Edward Elgar Publishing, An essential companion
Schlosberg D (2007) Defining environmental justice. Theories, movements, and nature. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Shanahan EA, Jones MD, McBeth MK (2011) Policy narratives and policy processes. Policy Stud J 39(3):535–561. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2011.00420.x
Shanahan EA, Jones MD, McBeth MK, Radaelli CM (2018) The narrative policy framework. In: Weible CM, Sabatier PA (eds) Theories of the policy process. Routledge, New York, pp 225–266
Shue H (1999) Global environmental and international inequality. Int Aff 75:531–545
Torney D, Cross MK (2018) Environmental and climate diplomacy: building coalitions through persuasion. In: Adelle C, Biedenkopf K, Torney D (eds) European Union external environmental policy. Rules, regulation and governance beyond borders. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp 39–58
United Nations (1992) United nations framework convention on climate change. Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/application/pdf/conveng.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug 2022
Van Hecke S, Wolfs W (2015) The European Parliament and European Foreign Policy. In: Jorgensen KE, Aarstad AK, Drieskens E, Laatikainen K, Tonra B (eds) The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy. SAGE Publications, London, pp 291–305
von Lucke F, Diez T, Aamodt S, Ahrens B (2021) The EU and global climate justice. Normative power caught in normative battles. Routledge, London and New York
Walker H, Biedenkopf K (2020) Why do only some chairs act as successful mediators? Trust in chairs of global climate negotiations. Int Stud Quart 64:440–452
Funding
This work was supported by the University of Leuven’s Faculty of Social Sciences and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) under Grant 11H3120N.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Petrović, S., Petri, F. & Biedenkopf, K. The European Parliament’s shifting perspectives on climate justice with regard to China and India. Asia Eur J 20, 423–439 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-022-00647-5
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-022-00647-5