1

A Re-assessment of the European Union’s Efforts in Tackling Global

Climate Change.

Edafe Ugbeta*

Abstract

Since the late 1980s when climate change became recognised as a common

concern to mankind, the European Union (EU) has been keenly committed to

global co-operation aimed at combating it. At the dawn of the 21st century, its

central executive body, the European Commission, declared that fighting climate

change was the most pressing policy challenge facing Europe. In 2008 it adopted

an ambitious policy popularly known as the ‘climate and energy package’

intended to cut the greenhouse gas emissions across Europe by 20% from their

1990 levels by 2020. Despite these measures, analysts have continued to identify

several gaps in the EU’s climate efforts, particularly with respect to its domestic

regulatory policies.

Drawing on relevant literature, this paper reviews the EU’s contributions to the

efforts in fighting climate change, both domestically and internationally. In doing

so, the focus of the paper will be on the key accomplishments and failures of the

EU in the climate change process. It concludes that, much as the EU’s response

so far is arguably impressive, there is extreme need for better global synergy,

particularly now that the international community is looking towards a new

climate regime.

‘Action on climate change is exactly the kind of test for the European Union in this century.

A test of our capacity to act, our capacity to deliver. And it is also a test of our

capacity to lead. For while the UK cannot solve climate change alone.

Nor of course, can the European Union. We need a global agreement,

for we are only one planet.’1

1. Introduction

Climate change has come to be firmly recognised as one of the most serious environmental

challenges facing humanity today. With observed scientific evidence spanning over two

* LL.B, LL.M (Kent), B.L, Ecological lawyer and Senior Associate at Aluko & Oyebode, Nigeria:

emu3@kent.ac.uk 1 Excerpt from a speech by Jose Manuel Barrosso, President of the European Commission Europe’s Climate

Change Opportunity at Lehamn Brothers London on 21 January 2008, p.5 available at

<www.http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release-SPEECH-08-29_en.htm> accessed on 1 August 2015.

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decades,2 questions and uncertainties as to whether global warming is real and that human

activity is the root cause3 are now within the realm of history. The crucial debate at the

moment is how to effectively tackle the problem, and this is particularly so given predictions

of likely environmental mishaps by the end of this century if there is no significant cut in

greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.4

International efforts aimed at tackling the causes and effects of climate change started in the

late 1980s when concerns about anthropogenic climatic change first emerged as a major

political issue in the UN General Assembly.5 Since then, the EU has been in the vanguard of

the efforts to address the problem6 and has contributed in many respects, both internationally

and domestically, as a result of which it is commonly regarded today as the global leader in

the politics of climate change.7 In spite of this, some commentators have argued that the

EU’s leadership is either ‘self-proclaimed’ or ‘unjustified’ because, as they suggest, even

though the EU has had ‘much action’ and a ‘plethora of initiatives, directives, and

interventions’ particularly in the last two decades, these efforts have not made much

difference in addressing the challenge of global warming .8

Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to re-examine the role the EU has played

so far in the global collaboration towards combating climate change and, in doing this, the

paper will progress in the following order. The next section presents a brief historical

overview of how the EU’s climate policy evolved over the years. The third section explores

the main policy tools and instruments that have been set in motion within the EU for

fighting climate change, while also highlighting its efforts at the global level. The fourth

section concludes with a summary of some of the key issues that have been touched upon in

the earlier sections, and also provides some remarks on future climate action.

2 See the Executive Summary of IPCC First Assessment Report 1990, Report of Working Group III (Covelo, CA:

Island Press, 1990); see also D. Bodansky, ‘The History of Global Climate Change Regime’ in U. Luterbacher and

D.F. Sprinz (eds), International Relations and Global Climate Change, (MIT Press 2001) Ch.2 3 R.S. Avi-Yonah and D.M. Uhlmann, ‘Combating Global Climate Change: Why a Carbon Tax Is a Better

Response to Global Warming Than Cap and Trade’ (2009) Stan Envtl. L.J., 3 at 4; see also S. Oberthur and H.E.

Ott, The Kyoto Protocol: International Climate Policy for the 21st Century, (Springer 1999) 3-9.

4 Avi-Yonah and Uhlmann (n.3) p.4.

5 M. Grubb, ‘European Climate Policy in a Global Context’, in H.O. Bergesen, D. Parmann and O.B. Thommessen

(eds.) Green Globe Yearbook of Int’l Coop and Env. & Dev. (OUP 1995) 41; see also K. Pittel and Others,

‘International Efforts to Combat Global Warming’, in W. Chen and Others (eds.), Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation (Springer 2012) 89; Bodansky (n.2) 23-32. 6 Grubb (n.5) 41.

7 M. Mehling and L. Massai, ‘The European Union and Climate Change: Leading the Way towards a Post-2012

Regime?’ (2007) Carbon & Climate L. Rev, 45-52. 8 D. Helm, ‘EU Climate Change Policy-a critique’ (Oxford 2009) 1.

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2. An Overview of the Evolution of the EU Climate Policy.

In order to present a clear assessment of the EU’s response to the threat of global warming,

it seems logical to explore how its climate policy has evolved over time, perhaps to see if

any significant progress has been made. Existing accounts of the development of EU’s

climate policy suggest that action to address the challenge of climate change was already

on the EU’s agenda as early as 1986, predating any tangible initiatives at the global level.9

In Jordon and Rayner’s terms, the EU embraced the fight against climate change at this

relatively early period because its policy-makers had become sufficiently familiar with the

‘wicked’ nature of climate change, following scientific discussions that resulted in a major

agenda-setting conference in Austria in 1985 and, more importantly, a Fitzsimmons Report,

which facilitated in turning climate change into a ‘political problem in the EU which

required action’10

However, though that the EU policy-makers recognised the potential

impacts of climate change at that relatively early period, because the prospects for

developing an EU-wide climate policy were not especially good at the time,11

the initial

measures were mostly isolated responses to specific concerns, which only slowly evolved

into a harmonized strategy over time.12

Essentially, the EU did not have the legal

competence to legislate on environmental and energy matters, let alone the specifics of

climate change,13

and member states were diametrically opposed to its involvement in these

issues which they considered to be their own sovereign affairs.14

Whilst the EU was grappling with how to develop common policy initiatives throughout

the late 1980s,15

the climate change issue was beginning to take centre-stage at the global

arena, having become recognized as a ‘common concern to mankind’ in the UN General

Assembly’s agenda.16

In 1988, for instance, the first international action which set the stage

for the current global climate regime was taken when, following a proposal by the US

9 A. Jordan and T. Rayner, ‘The Evolution of Climate Policy in the European Union: an historical overview’, in A.

Jordan and Others (eds.), Climate Policy in the European Union (CUP 2010) Ch. 3 at 53; see also Mehling and

Massai (n.7) 46. 10

Jordan and Rayner (n.9) 53. 11

A. Jordan, D. Huitema and H.V. Asselt, ‘Climate Change Policy in the European Union: an introduction’ in A.

Jordan and Others (eds.), Climate Policy in the European Union (CUP 2010) Ch. 1 at 9 12

Mehling and Massai (n.7) 46. 13

See further details, see C. Damro, I. Hardie and D. Mackenzie, ‘The EU and Climate Change Policy: Law, Politics and Prominence at Different Levels’ (2008) Journal of Contemporary European Research, Vol. 4, pp.179-

192. 14

Jordan and Rayner (n.9) 53 15 Jordan, Huitema and Asselt (n.11) 9-10. 16

P. Sands and Others, Principles of International Environmental Law, (3rd

edn CUP 2012) 275; see also M. Pallemaerts and R. Williams, ‘Climate Change: The International and European Policy Framework’ in M. Peeters

and K. Deketelaere (eds.) EU Climate Change Policy: the challenge of new regulatory initiatives (2006) 22-28.

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government, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP) set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) to ‘prepare, based on available scientific information, assessments on all aspects of

climate change and its impacts, with a view of formulating realistic response strategies.’17

In its first assessment report in 1990, the IPCC confirmed that the earth was indeed

warming, provided scientific assessment of the potential impacts of the problem, and also

recommended international negotiations on a framework convention aimed at tackling the

problem.18

In response to the IPCC’s recommendation and earlier calls by the UN General Assembly,

the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted by

156 contracting parties, including the EU, on May 9 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit.19

This

Convention, though adopted for the ultimate purpose of ‘stabilizing greenhouse gas

concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic

interference with the climate system’20

, did not set any binding limits on GHG emissions

for individual states; rather, it established a non-binding framework which required

developed countries to take the lead, individually or jointly, in tackling the problem by

returning their GHG emissions to 1990 levels.21

Essentially, the Convention only created an

institutional framework for further international negotiations on measures to fight climate

change, and empowered the Conference of the Parties – the supreme political body created

by the Convention – to adopt such decisions and protocols that may be necessary to

promote the effective implementation of the Convention.22

With the coming into force of the UNFCCC in 1994, a new round of negotiations geared

towards agreeing on firmer and binding obligations was launched at the first Conference of

the Parties in Berlin, Germany in 1995. The resultant negotiations produced the first

protocol to the Convention, the famous Kyoto Protocol,23

at the third Conference of the

Parties in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol, which remains the main driving force

of international efforts to address climate change to date, introduced legally binding targets

for industrialized countries, requiring them to cut their overall GHG emissions by at least 5

17

See the history of the IPCC available at <http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history/ > accessed on 4 August 2015; see also S. Bell, D. McGillivray and O.W. Pedersen, Environmental Law (8

th edn OUP 2013) 543.

18 See IPCC First Assessment Report 1990: The IPCC Response Strategies, Report of Working Group III (Covelo,

CA: Island Press, 1990). 19

Sands (n.16) 275. 20

See Article 2 of the UNFCCC. 21

Article 4(2) UNFCCC. 22

See Articles 7(2) and 17 UNFCCC. 23

Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Doc.

FCCC/CP/1997/7/Add.1, adopted on December 11, 1997.

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percent below 1990 levels in the period between 2008 and 2012.24

The EU and its then 15

member states negotiated as a bubble and committed to an overall reduction by 8% of 1990

levels by 2012.25

The EU’s initial response to its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol was to launch a

European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) in June 2000 and revised in 2005,26

which

began the process of identifying all ‘elements of the European Climate Change Strategy’

and recommending ‘common and co-ordinated policies and measures on climate change’

across several economic sectors.27

The ECCP process was in 2008 followed up by a

Climate and Energy Package – the so-called ’20-20-20’ targets – with the aim of

complementing the measures that were already running under the ECCP, and also to

introduce new measures, notably a Renewable Energy Directive and a Directive on carbon

capture and storage.28

The net result of these two strategies – the ECCP and the Climate and Energy Package – is

a wide array of policy initiatives and measures which the EU has now put into place in its

internal effort to fight climate change, notably a directive setting up the EU emissions

trading scheme (initially Directive 2003/87/EC and later Directive 2009/29/EC), directive

on promotion of renewable energy sources (Directive 2009/28/EC), directive promoting

cogeneration of heat and electricity (Directive 2004/8/EC) and a directive extending the EU

emissions trading system to aviation (Directive 2008/101/EC).29

Generally, however, the

2008 climate and energy package together with the individual policy initiatives under it,

now represent the EU’s domestic efforts to address climate change.30

3. An Assessment of the EU Climate Policy

Having roughly presented in historical context how the EU climate policy gradually

evolved, this section begins to analyze in more detail the specific regulatory measures and

24 See Article 3(1) Kyoto Protocol. 25 S. Oberthur, ‘The European Union in International Climate Policy: the prospect for leadership (2007) 42

Intereconomics, 77-83, at 78. 26

See the details available at <http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/eccp> accessed on 6 August 2015; see Bell,

McGillivray and Pedersen (n.17) 548. 27

J. Larragan, ‘Linking the Project Based Mechanisms with the EU ETS: the present state of affairs and challenges

ahead’ in M. Peeters and K. Deketelaere (eds.) EU Climate Change Policy: the challenge of new regulatory initiatives (2006) 102, see also Michling and Massai (n.7) 46. 28

See S. Oberthur and M. Pallemaerts, ‘The EU’s Internal and External Climate Policies: an Historical Overview’ in S. Oberthur and Others (eds.), The New Climate Policies in the European Union: Internal Legislation and Climate

Diplomacy (Vubpress 2010) 46-52. 29 See generally Bell, McGillivray and Pedersen (n.17) 549 for the various policy initiatives that the EU has

adopted in its fight against climate change. 30 E. Fisher, B. Lange and E. Scotford, Environmental Law (OUP 2013) 646; see also Oberthur and Pallemaerts

(n.28) 46-55.

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political steps that the EU has taken to combat global warming and, to that end, its key

successes and limitations will be focused on. It is pertinent to mention from the outset that

since the EU's participation in the fight against climate change is at two levels - at the

international level and within the EU- its action at the EU level will first be considered

before turning to its efforts at the global arena.

Key Successes of EU’s Domestic Climate Policy.

Whilst it is acknowledged that the fight against climate change is yet to be won, some

major steps that the EU has taken towards winning the fight represent its successes in the

context of the discussion that follows. In this respect, the action which the author considers

as the first achievement of the EU (perhaps because it paved the way for the whole raft of

policies that the EU has implemented to counter climate change today) is that it was able to

establish its legal competence to engage in environmental and energy matters.31

As

mentioned in the previous section, the prospects for developing an EU-wide climate policy

was not initially good because the EU lacked the competence to legislate on these issues

since the original 1957 Treaty of Rome that set up the European Economic Community did

not make any provision for the EU’s legal competence in environmental policy.32

However,

as a result of various internal developments, notably the formal inclusion of its

environmental policy in the 1986 Single European Act (SEA) as well as the 1992

Maastricht Treaty which provided for its competence to enter into environmental treaties on

behalf of the Union and its member states,33

the EU’s legal competence to legislate, in its

own right, on environmental and energy matters has increasingly been established.34

The European Climate Change Programme established in 2000, including the various

policies and measures that resulted from its first and second phases, represents a further

achievement that the EU has had in the fight against global warming. Going by the EU’s

own statements, since the ECCP was launched, over thirty-six initiatives had been

implemented to tackle climate change as of January 2006.35

One of the most significant and

innovative policy instruments that came out of the ECCP process is the EU emissions

31 Damro, Hardie and Mackenzie (n.13) 183-185; see also Oberthur and Pallemaerts (n.28) 42. 32 ibid, 181 33

ibid, 182-183. 34

See generally E. Orlando, ‘The Evolution of the EU Policy and Law in the Environmental Field: Achievements and Current Challenges’ (Transworld 2013) 1-23. 35 See European Commission, The European Climate Change Programme – EU Action against Climate Change

(European Communities 2006) p.10-20; see also Damro, Hardie and Mackenzie (n.13) 179-180.

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trading scheme.36

Widely recognized today as the world’s first and largest emissions

trading scheme,37

the EU ETS was established in 2005 pursuant to Directive 2003/87/EC,

as the cornerstone of the EU’s drive to meet its emissions reduction target under the Kyoto

Protocol.38

The scheme was adopted after the idea of a carbon tax was proposed and

rejected,39

and it works on a ‘cap and trade’ principle in that the overall quantity of GHGs

that can be emitted per year by the power plants, factories and other industries covered by

the scheme – totalling over 11,000 heavy energy-using installations in the 28 EU member

states as well as Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland – is subject to a cap set at EU level, and

within this EU-wide cap, businesses receive or buy emission allowances which they may

trade if they desire.40

Even though the first two phases of the scheme were characterized by several setbacks – as

a result of which the entire scheme is subject to various criticisms from different

stakeholders,41

its third phase which runs from 2013 to 2020 under the revised ETS

directive (2009/29/EC) is a strategic component of the EU’s target to achieve a 20% cut in

GHG emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.42

It is also important to note that, in

addition to helping the EU meet its emissions reduction targets, the EU ETS is also

inspiring the implementation of similar schemes in other countries and regions of the

world, including Australia, Switzerland and Japan, which the EU ETS intends to link up

with in the future,43

and thereby fostering international cooperation on measures to curb

climate change.

The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, enacted as part of the 2008 Climate and Energy

Package, is perhaps the next most important success that the EU has had in fighting climate

change.44

Even though adopted as a regulatory measure primarily aimed at achieving the 20-

36 European Commission (n.35) 6. 37 European Commission, The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) (European Union, 2013), 1-2; see also T.

Laing and Others, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of the EU Emissions Trading System’ (Centre for Climate Change

Economics & Policy 2013) 1-2. 38

European Commission (n.37) 1. 39 H.V. Asselt, ‘Emissions trading: the enthusiastic adoption of an ‘alien’ instrument?’ in A. Jordan and Others

(eds.), Climate Change Policy in the European Union, (CUP 2010) 131; see also Bell, McGillivray and Pedersen (n.17) 550. 40 See generally European Commission (n.37) 3-4 41 T. Laing and Others (n.37) 2; see also F. Branger and Others, The European Union Emissions Trading System: should we throw the flagship out with the bathwater? (2013) 8-16; N. Berghmans, O. Sartor and N. Stephan,

Reforming the EU ETS: Give it Some Work! (Climate Brief 2013) 2. 42

European Commission (n.37) 4-5; see also L. Parker, Climate Change and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

(ETS): Looking to 2020, (2010) Congressional Research Service, 8. 43

European Commission (n.37) pp.1 and 4. 44

See generally M. Ragwitz and Others, Shaping an Effective and Efficient European Renewable Energy Market

(Re-Shaping 2012) 8-9, available at<www.reshaping-res-policy.eu> accessed on 8 August 2015.

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20-20 ambition – especially with respect to the 20 per cent target for the share of energy

from renewable sources,45

studies suggest that the directive is already producing positive

outcomes. According to Ragwitz and others, implementing the renewable energy directive

along with the revised EU ETS directive, which introduced full auctioning of carbon

allowances post 2012, has led to increased deployment of renewable energies throughout

the EU46

and that the 2020 targets could even be over-achieved if the present trend is

sustained.47

Beyond these comments, the fact that the renewables directive which ‘obliges

Europe to increase the share of renewable energy from 6% to 20% of final energy by

2020’48

is in fact up and running, in the writer’s view, is a success in itself for the EU – to

the extent that it presents an opportunity for Europe to head towards a long-term climate

stabilization scenario.49

Key Successes of EU International Climate Policy.

Given that the EU has been actively involved in efforts to address climate change at the

global level since the late 1980s,50

tracking its key successes is not an easy venture.

However, its efforts to have in place the global climate change regime51

– as represented by

the UNFCCC and its Protocol Kyoto – appear to be a convenient starting point. First,

during the negotiations that culminated in the UNFCCC, the EU pushed for a binding

commitment by developed nations to stabilize their CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000,

though unsuccessfully on that occasion.52

However, this ambition was achieved in the

Kyoto Protocol,53

where the developed countries agreed to cut their overall GHG emissions

by at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2012, even though the EU had proposed a 15%

reduction by 2010.54

Second, analysts are in broad agreement that the entry into force of Kyoto Protocol in 2005

was as a result of the political efforts of the EU in at least two main respects: by

championing the ‘environmental integrity’ of the Protocol in the negotiations on the

Marrakesh Accords of 2001, which established the rulebook or set of detailed rules for

45 Bell, McGillivray and Pedersen (n.17) 555. 46 Ragwitz and Others (n.44) 8-9. 47 ibid, 9; see 48 K. Neuhoff, ‘Implementing the EU Renewables Directive’ (Oxford 2009) Electricity Policy Research Group, 2. 49 Ibid. 50

Jordan, Huitema and Asselt (n.11) 6. 51

See generally Bodansky (n.2) 23-37. 52

Oberthur (n.25) 78. 53 W.D. Nordhaus, ‘Life After Kyoto: Alternative Approaches to Global Warming Policies’ (2005) p.1 54 Oberthur (n.25) 78.

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implementing the Kyoto Protocol;55

and by playing a leading role as the major international

advocate for the ratification of the Protocol, especially by persuading Russia to ratify it.56

Indeed, some commentators have expressed the EU’s efforts in bringing the Kyoto Protocol

into force in succinct terms. For example, according to Oberthur and Pallemaerts:

While the EU’s campaign for an entry into force of the Protocol in 2002

turned out to be unrealistic, the great majority of industrialized countries

ratified the Protocol before the end of 2002 – with the notable exception of

Russia. Diplomatic efforts to achieve Russian ratification intensified over

the coming years. Central to these efforts was the Russian demand for the

EU to support its claim for member in the World Trade Organisation

(WTO). After a number of contradictory declarations and developments

arising from the internal Russian debate, Russia eventually ratified the

Kyoto Protocol on 18 November 2004 so that the Protocol entered into

force on 16 February 2005. Achieving Russian ratification is widely

considered a major success of the EU climate diplomacy.57

Likewise, Damro, Hardie and Mackenzie note that:

Following the 1997 COP-3 that resulted in the signing of the Kyoto

Protocol, the EU played a prominent role as an advocate for the ratification

of the agreement. The EU was rewarded for its efforts in 2005 when

enough countries ratified the Protocol for it to enter into force.58

From the above assessments, it is obvious that the EU has had some remarkable

achievements in the global politics of climate change; in particular, its political efforts in

ensuring that the Kyoto Protocol, which is currently at the core of global efforts to tackle

climate change, entered into force in 2005 after the US withdrew its participation from the

Kyoto process in 2001.59

As a result, it is not surprising that the EU is commonly perceived

as the global leader in climate politics,60

although scholars remain fairly divided in their

55 ibid. 56

ibid. 57 Oberthur and Pallemaerts (n.28) p.39. 58 Damro, Hardie and Mackenzie (n.13) 180. 59 See generally Oberthur and Pallemaerts (n.28) 33-39. 60 Mehling and Massai (n.7) 45; Oberthur (n.25) 77.

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opinions of its leadership ability.61

While the academic debate relating to its ability to lead

is outside the remits of this paper, it suffices to note that the EU has been an important

player in the international politics of climate change,62

and has had some major victories,

of which ensuring that the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005 is perhaps the most

significant.

Key Failures of EU Climate Policy

Notwithstanding the extent that the EU has gone in fighting global warming, as illustrated

above, legal scholars have identified several challenges of the EU climate change policy,

and in this section the most important ones will be highlighted.

A key limitation of the EU’s efforts to fight climate change is that the EU and its member

states are not meeting their international obligations in the context of providing financial

support for developing countries to support their mitigation and adaption efforts.63

Pallemaerts and Armstrong argue that, whereas industrialized countries, through channels

established by the UNFCCC, committed themselves to provide ‘new and additional

financial assistance’ to developing countries ‘on a grant or concessional basis’ to support

mitigation and adaptation measures to be taken by those countries to address climate

change,64

the EU and its member states have not lived up their commitments, particularly

since 2001.65

This weakness of the EU climate policy, which has been corroborated by

other studies,66

clearly puts a question mark on the EU’s claim to global leadership in the

politics of climate change.67

Uncertainties and inadequate knowledge of future climatic conditions have also been

identified as a key challenge to planning appropriate adaptation measures by the EU.68

According to Bosello and others, the development of workable climatic adaptation

61 See for instance L.V. Schaik, ‘The EU’s Disappointing Leadership on Climate, or should we be less

judgmental?’ in K.E. Jorgen and K.V. Laatikainen (eds.) (2012) Routledge Handbook on the EU and International

Institutions, 11-17; see also Jordan, Huitema and Asselt (n.11) 6-8; Helm (n.8) 3-5. 62 Damro, Hardie and Mackenzie (n.13) 180. 63

See M. Pallemaerts and J. Armstrong, ‘Financial Support for Developing Countries for Climate Change

Mitigation and Adaptation: Is the EU Meeting its Commitments?’ (2009) Institute for European Environmental Policy, 2-16. 64

ibid, 2. 65

ibid, 16. 66

L. Peskett and Others, ‘Climate Change Challenges for EU Development Co-operation: emerging issues (2009) 10-18. 67 Pallemaerts and Armstrong (n.63) 16. 68 See F. Bosello and Others, Challenges to Planning Climate Adaptation Strategies in Europe, (2013) Policy Brief,

1-2 available at <www.base-adaptation.eu > accessed on 9 August 2015.

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strategies across Europe is currently facing a major challenge, because information

available to policy-makers regarding future physical changes in climatic conditions is

oftentimes ‘scattered, poorly integrated, difficult to access, or is framed towards an

exclusively scientific audience’.69

At the same time, they indicate that the scenario is

compounded by uncertainty relating to socioeconomic trends and changes.70

Another major weakness of the EU climate policy is that the carbon price is too low to

incentivize regulated companies to invest in new low-carbon technologies.71

This a

common critique of the EU ETS at present72

– that it is yet to recover from the crash in the

carbon price during the second phase of the scheme, and therefore suffers from three

structural problems: ‘a lack of sufficiently credible commitments on the post-2020 cap; an

insufficient level of abatement ambition after allowing for abatement driven by other

policies and international credits; and an absence of flexibility in response to extraordinary

events impacting the demand for allowances’.73

As a result, analysts suggest that the EU

ETS needs urgent structural reform that would lift the low carbon price, since it is the main

driving force of the EU’s roadmap to a low-carbon economy.74

Lack of political commitment to the use of nuclear energy, CCS and R&D has also been

cited as a major limitation of the EU’s efforts to tackle global warming.75

In Helm’s terms,

whereas nuclear energy is a ‘known, deployable, low-carbon technology, capable of

producing large quantities of base-load electricity’ which several European countries,

including the UK and France, has effectively deployed, the EU continues to neglect this

option in its climate policies, and focuses on the EU ETS and renewable.76

Helm goes on

to conclude that:

The comparative neglect of nuclear, CCS and R&D provides a missed

opportunity in tackling global warming. By concentrating on the EU ETS

and renewables, the EU’s contribution to addressing global warming

between now and 2020 is likely to be marginal...Policy can be directed

towards CCS, R&D and even nuclear. Given the over-riding urgency of

69 ibid, 2. 70 ibid, 2. 71

R. Calel and A. Dechezlepretre, ‘Low-carbon innovation is up, but not because of the EU ETS’ (CDC Climat Research 2013); available at <www.cdcclimat.com/IMG/pdf/tendances_carbone> accessed on 9 August, 2015. 72 Helm (n.8) 18-20. 73 See Berghmans, Sartor and Stephan (n.41) 1-2. 74

ibid, 2-8; see also the comments by Calel and Dechezlepretre (n.71) 3-4. 75

Helm (n.8) 20-23. 76

ibid.

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climate change, The EU has the scope to move on towards a more

credible and better-designed policy framework.77

While it is conceded that the EU has taken some steps with respect to the nuclear energy

option after Helm’s observations above – the EU published its ‘Energy Roadmap 2050’ in

December 2011 and a Green Paper titled ‘A 2030 Framework for Climate and Energy

Policies’ in March 201378

– the fact remains that no effective nuclear energy policy has

been put in place to date.79

Somewhat related to Helm’s views above, Oberthur and Pallemaerts argue that the existing

EU climate policies, taken together, are still a far cry from what would be required to

achieve the ‘structural changes in the European energy systems so as to limit global

temperature increase to an average of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’.80

This argument stems from the understanding that, since the climate and energy package

demands a little over half of the EU emission reductions to be achieved within the EU

itself, it gives a weak political signal for a total transformation of the EU’s energy

systems.81

From the above analysis, it is clear that there are some policy options that the EU has not

deployed in its effort to combat climate change. As the EU is always calling for binding

commitments at the global level, one would have thought its domestic climate policies

must be up to speed, but this is not so as this assessment indicates. As some analysts sum

it:

While the EU regularly put forward ever more ambitious negotiating

positions on the international scene, its rhetoric was not matched by

equally ambitious domestic policies.82

4. Concluding Remarks.

As climate change is a crucial environmental challenge that raises difficult concerns all

over the world, global cooperation on measures to address it has been repeatedly

77

ibid, 22, 24. 78

Foratom, EU Nuclear Energy Policy Forecast 2014 (2014) 4. 79

ibid, see p.9. 80 Oberthur and Pallemaerts (n.28) 54. 81 ibid. 82 ibid, 53.

13

advocated. In this paper, a reflection on the global-level measures that have been put in

place towards addressing the problem since the late 1980s offers an interesting opportunity

to assess the role the EU has played so far in this endeavour. This paper has tried to

demonstrate how the EU responded to global efforts to have in place an international

climate regime, by displaying a high degree of involvement in international negotiations

and by pushing for binding emissions reduction commitments by industrialized countries.

Notably, the paper highlighted the prominent political role the EU played in persuading

Russia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in order to bring it into order in 2005.

At the same time, the paper illustrates how the EU, from a very rocky start has

increasingly established its legal competence to legislate on environmental and energy

matters, such that its policy responses to global warming has progressed from a loose range

of individual measures towards a more coordinated strategy – with a mix of several

regulatory initiatives, of which its emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) is perhaps the most

important policy instrument, both domestically and internationally.

Yet, as we have seen in the above assessment, there remain certain aspects in which the EU

is failing in its action on global warming. For instance, the EU appears to be more focused

on meeting its domestic emissions reduction targets, and relegates its international

obligation under the UNFCCC to provide financial assistance to developing countries to

support their mitigation and adaptation efforts. Again, the EU is foot-dragging on the

nuclear energy option which, to share Helm’s opinion, is a ‘known, deployable, low-

carbon technology, capable of producing large quantities of base-load electricity’ that has

been resorted to by several EU countries, notably the UK and France.

Overall, however, it could be argued that the EU’s effort to date is commendable,

particularly when viewed with the lens that the fight against global warming is not only for

the EU alone, but one that demands a collective global action. If other countries and

regions, particularly the other huge emitters – the USA, China, Russia, and Japan, were to

demonstrate commitment comparable to that which the EU has so far shown, perhaps

Helm’s opinion that ‘there has been much action but little effect’83

could have be different.

It is hoped that these countries, considering the scale and exigency of the challenge at

hand, would show better commitment as the international community looks towards

83 Helm (n.8 ) p.1

14

December 2015 for the 21st Conference of Parties scheduled to hold in France, where a

new global climate deal would be brokered.

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