The EU and Global Climate Justice

The Eu in a Changing World Order: In Defence of Normative Power 2.0

“…In climate change, the EU had to accept that it was not able to convince the other UN member states to agree on a top-down follow-up regime to the Kyoto Protocol (Lucke et al, 2021). Instead, the Paris agreement was heavily influenced by the bargaining positions of China and the US (Eckersley, 2020), and enshrined a process of indirect governance through nationally determined contributions, coupled with best practices and discursive pressure.…”

How and why European and Chinese pro-climate leadership may be challenged by their strategic economic interests in Brazil

“…Inspired by a Neo-Gramscian perspective (Cox 1987 ; Ollman 2014 ; Teschke and Cemgil 2014 ), we hypothesize that the promotion of a global zero/low carbon economy agenda raises a new rationale for political behaviour and the need to (re)define the rules of the international climate game. Nonetheless, this redefinition involves a set of constraints related both to short-term economic interests in different world regions and the realities of political power analyzed from the global justice frame of reference (Baer et al 2010 ; Bourban 2018 ; Holifield 2020 ; Lucke et al 2021 ).…”

The EU and China in the climate regime: exploring different pathways towards climate justice

“…At the same time, the most severe effects of climate change will hit developing countries and their populations much earlier and harder than wealthy industrialized states, and future generations will most likely suffer even worse consequences if present actors do not rapidly change course (Gardiner 2006 ; IPCC 2018 ). This raises numerous questions about responsibility and entitlement, which pose significant hindrances for the climate regime and which will continue to dominate the debates about climate governance in the foreseeable future (von Lucke et al 2021 ; von Lucke 2021 ).…”

“…The EU has historically been an advocate of a supranational and legally binding regime and has thus particularly pushed the Kyoto Protocol with its centralized architecture and fixed emission reduction targets for industrialized states. From a global justice perspective (Eriksen 2016 ; Sjursen 2017 ), one can conceptualize this as strengthening “impartiality,” meaning an emphasis on universalist, cosmopolitan values, scientific expertise, and supranational institutions (von Lucke et al 2021 ). The EU only began to change its strategy after the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 where it encountered severe resistance especially from the USA and large developing countries including China (Groen et al 2012 ).…”

“…In order to regain its influence and to reach a meaningful agreement for a post-Kyoto world at COP-21 in Paris in 2015, the EU thus largely abandoned its emphasis on “targets and timetables” and on pushing legally binding emission reduction targets. Instead, it tried to act as a “leadiator” between developing and industrialized countries (Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013 ), started a diplomatic outreach campaign to forge alliances (Torney and Cross 2018 ), and accepted a higher degree of voluntariness concerning GHG reductions—in global justice terms a strengthening “mutual recognition” and “non-domination” (von Lucke et al 2021 ).…”