Climate change has been an urgent matter in international politics since at least the late 1980s when the Brundtland Commission Report, Our Common Future, was published (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) alerting to the effects of the ozone hole and defining the concept of “sustainable development” as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The conclusion of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, resulting from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that took place in Rio de Janeiro, the “Earth Summit,” was a breakthrough for international cooperation. The UNFCCC yearly Conferences of the Parties (COPs) are by now a focal point for global exchanges not only about the implementation of the agreement but also about environmental commitments broadly speaking. In the context of the COPs, two main treaties were produced, the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997 (in force in 2005), and the Paris Agreement, in 2015 (in force in 2016). A new stage of concern was achieved with the launching of the FCCC Global Warming Report of 1.5 C, in 2018, with a detailed assessment of the impact of global warming. The current global ecological crisis is so profound that it has been suggested that an epoch-scale boundary has been crossed, from the Holocene to the so-called Anthropocene; biophysical impacts include the rise in global temperature and sea levels, ocean acidification, and coral bleaching, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and water, soil and air pollution (Ramos, 2020, p. 813).

Since the 1990s an ever-expanding literature has addressed the possibilities and challenges for international cooperation to address environmental problems and climate change; this book addresses these issues from a less studied perspective, namely, comparative regionalism. Comparative regionalism studies have explored the role of regions in global politics and multilateral cooperation and have initially focused on economics and security in the context of the post-Second World War (Katzenstein, 1996; Mansfield & Milner, 1997; Solingen, 2014). In the 1990s, with the deepening of regional integration in Europe, the regional level became a focus of attention on a broader range of areas, such as health, education, gender, and migration. As a research agenda, comparative regionalism studies propose to overcome the centrality of the European Union (EU) in regionalism studies and compare regional processes and organizations in the Americas, Africa, and Asia from an equal foot methodological perspective (Fawcett, 2004; Sbragia, 2008; De Lombaerde et al., 2010; Acharya, 2012; Börzel & Risse, 2016).

Comparative regionalism studies in the areas of environment and climate change are scarce. In what seems to be the first book addressing this research agenda, Elliott and Breslin (Elliot and Breslin 2011) published the edited volume Comparative Environmental Regionalism in 2011 including chapters on the EU environmental policy, “pan-European” cooperation, and regional initiatives in East Asia, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa. Jorg Balsiger advanced the idea of regional environmental governance in a number of publications and special issues (Balsiger & Debarbieux, 2011; Balsiger & Vandeveer, 2012; Balsiger & Prys, 2016). The empirical focus of the 2011 and 2012 special issues was mostly Europe and Asia, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the 2016 publication introduced a multidimensional typology of regional agreements to present a systematic account of regional environmental governance as a first step to further research, given what they identified then as a lack of research in this area. Schreurs (2013) contributed with a chapter on regionalism and environment governance in a Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy edited by R Falkner in which she analyzes the EU institutions for environmental protection, its leadership at the global level, and environmental cooperation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the ASEAN.

In a chapter published in the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, edited by Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse, in 2016, Peter Haas (Haas 2016) broadly defined environmental governance at the regional level as “processes of collective deliberations about norms, institutions, participation, practices and rules which occur at geographical scales associated with major conventional regions – or essentially continents or where those continents collide in an effort to address transboundary environmental degradation occurring at the regional scale” (p. 431). In the chapter, Haas analyzed several cases of regional governance of river basins, regional seas, air pollution, marine fisheries, and others, in Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Eurasia, and the Middle East, including governance by three formal regional organizations: NAFTA, EU, and ASEAN. In the case of the Americas, the only formal regional organization included was NAFTA, and other cases were the Comisión Permanent del Pacífico Sur (CPPS) and the Central American Marine Transport Commission (COCATRAM).

There is a rich literature about the environment and climate change in Latin America, but no publication has addressed these areas through the lenses of comparative regionalism or compared regional European and Latin American agendas and policies on the environment and climate change, as we do in this book. The four axes that Bianculli and Ribeiro Hoffmann (2016, p.651) propose to study regional social policies are useful to think about how the environment and climate change have been addressed in Europe and Latin America and to what extent and how the regional level contributes to policymaking in the fields of environment and climate change, vis-à-vis the global and the national levels. The four axes are regional redistribution mechanisms, regional regulations, regional rights, and regional cooperation. Regional redistribution mechanisms include regional banks and funds from third parties, regional regulations can include the setting of standards to avoid a race to the bottom and the regulation of private social services, regional social rights can be assured in regional treaties, and regional cooperation includes technical cooperation, capacity building, and harmonization of domestic policies and regulations.

This edited volume has two main objectives: the first is to critically analyze and compare the role of regions in addressing environmental and climate change challenges in Europe and Latin America. The second objective is to assess the initiatives developed among these regions and formulate recommendations, contributing, therefore, to the mutual understanding of the issues at stake. The second objective is particularly important given that the book results from research developed by the Jean Monnet Network (JMN) “Crisis-Equity-Democracy” (620963-EPP-1-2020-1-BR-EPPJMO-NETWORK), which aims at strengthening the Strategic Partnership between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

Given these objectives, the book is structured in three main sections. In the first section, the authors discuss cooperation and perspectives on climate change within and among the EU and Latin American regional organizations. The first two chapters analyze the development of the norms, agendas, and initiatives discussed and implemented at the regional level, including an analysis of existing regional redistribution mechanisms, regional regulations, and regional cooperation, as well as reflections about rights-based approaches to sustainable development including the rights of nature. Jamile Mata Diz and Márcio Luís de Oliveira (chapter “The EU in a Multi-Dimensional Regime: The Regulation Of Climate Neutrality”) focus on the EU and Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann (chapter “Climate Change Cooperation in Latin American Regionalism”) on the Southern Cone Market (MERCOSUR), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Forum for the Progress and Integration of South America (PROSUR), and CELAC. The two following chapters explore these issues at the interregional level, Federico Castiglioni focuses on EU-MERCOSUR relations (chapter “An “Aggressive” Cooperation: Environment as a Hot Issue in EU-LAC Relations”), and Christian Ghymers focuses on EU-CELAC (chapter “Fostering the Dynamics of the Bi-regional Summit EU-CELAC for Spurring the Cooperation in Climate Change”).

The second section addresses the challenges to finance development and a “greener” economy in both regions, reflecting on the existing mechanisms and potential innovations, i.e., mostly the question of redistribution at the global and regional levels. Stephany Griffith-Jones and Marco Carreras (chapter “The Role of European Investment Bank (EIB) and National And Regional Development Banks in The Green Transformation”) examine the countercyclical role of the European Investment Bank and development banks to the green transformation in the EU and at the global level, as well to the LAC region. Stephan Schulmeister (chapter “Fixing Rising Price Paths for Fossil Energy – Basis of a “Green Growth” Without Rebound Effects”) presents an ambitious alternative approach to carbon taxes and emission trading schemes as mechanisms to incentivize the necessary investments in a permanent reduction of carbon emissions, taking the EU and its European Green Deal as an example, and consisting of fixing long-term price paths for crude oil, coal, and natural gas.

The chapters of the third section critically assess so-called new green solutions to climate change within these two regions, illustrating the challenges of fostering consensus on priorities and most appropriate mechanisms, policies, and projects on the ground. They address mostly the axes of regulation, rights, and cooperation. The first three chapters focus on the agricultural sector, and the last two take an overall perspective. Yannis E. Doukas, Ioannis Vardopoulos, and Pavlos Petides (chapter “Challenging the Status Quo: A Critical Analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy’s Shift Towards Sustainability”) explore how the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)’s move toward “greening” is redefining the trajectory of EU and global agriculture, and Napoleon Maravegias, Yannis E. Doukas, and Pavlos Petides (chap. “Climate Change Concerns and the role of Research & Innovation in the Agricultural Sector: The European Union Context”) focus on the more specific role of research and innovation (R&I) in the agricultural sector, to deal with climate change challenges, especially in the context of the EU and the new CAP. Alexandra Teixeira and Camila Amorim Jardim (chapter “Building Climate-Resilient Food Systems: The Case of IFAD in Brazil’s Semiarid”) turn to Latin America and analyze how climate change is worsening food insecurity and malnutrition in this region and explore regional pathways, challenges, and project-specific solutions for building sustainable climate-resilient food systems, presenting the case study of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s Pro-Semiarid Project in Bahia, Brazil (PSA). Last but not least, Paula Sandrin (chapter “EU and Brazil in the International Circuits of Disavowal of the Climate Crisis Paula Sandrin (PUC-Rio)”) analyzes joint initiatives to tackle the climate crisis and the optimism surrounding green hydrogen as a possible new source of sustainable connectivity between EU and LAC in the illustrative case of EU-Brazil projects, through the prism of the psychoanalytical concept of disavowal.

In conclusion, we draw on the findings of the chapters and the four axes of social policymaking beyond nation-states, i.e., redistribution mechanisms, regulations, rights, and cooperation on environmental issues and climate change to elaborate common findings about the (potential) role of the regional level in this field and advance recommendations in view of the EU-CELAC Strategic Partnership. The case for a (re)scaling of policy decision-making and implementation from nation-states has been more accepted in the fields of environment and climate change than other social policies such as health or education, but this recognition does not imply a consensus on the diagnostic or on how to address the (common) problems. In this volume the chapters address environmental and climate change from different disciplines and theoretical perspectives, by authors from Europe and Latin America and senior and junior scholars. Most authors have been collaborating in the Jean Monnet Network “Crisis-Equity-Democracy” since 2016 when it started, and others joined later; the volume is therefore a sample of the diversity and complexity of the issues in hand. The aim of this edited volume was not to reach a consensus on all the issues we address but to provoke critical thinking in both regions, assuming that fostering a space of exchange of perspectives and dialogue among scholars and practitioners from both regions from a comparative regionalism perspective may contribute to the strengthening the EU-CELAC Strategic Partnership and the achievement of common solutions on environmental and climate change issues at a particularly critical global juncture.