Rethinking European Climate Change Policy

Abstract

European climate change policy has been designed to meet the requirements of a more efficient, greener, and more competitive economy. With domestic legislation in place comparatively early, the European Union (EU) has over several years assumed the role of a driving force behind international climate policies and negotiations. However, this link between domestic action and international leadership has recently been weakened. On the one hand, the economic crisis and related greenhouse gas emissions reductions have starkly reduced the ambitiousness of domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and thus also their model character for other industrialized and emerging economies. On the other hand, the failure to reach a legally binding, comprehensive, and ambitious climate change agreement in Copenhagen has put into question the influence the EU can assert on the international level. EU climate change policy needs to react to these developments in order to provide incentives for low-carbon energy investments required to fight global warming and its predicted impacts on Europe and indeed the world.