Partners at Paris? climate negotiations and transatlantic relations

ABSTRACT

There is arguably no security crisis so great as the one that stems from climate change. For some time, the EU, rather than the US, has led the way in terms of far-ranging policies to reduce carbon emissions. But despite the fact that the EU has been able to bind itself to strong environmental norms internally, it has – up until COP21 – been a relatively weak norm entrepreneur externally when seeking to convince others, especially the US, to adopt stronger environmental policies. Why was the EU finally able to increase its influence in the lead up and at the 2015 UN summit in Paris? This article argues that while the EU’s climate diplomacy has underperformed in the past, it has been quick to adapt since the 2009 Copenhagen summit through effectively broadening its epistemic community of climate diplomats, and engaging in a process of political learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Paris climate change agreement
• epistemic community
• Green Diplomacy Network
• transatlantic relations
• climate diplomacy

Acknowledgments

For valuable feedback on earlier drafts, I would like to thank Marianne Riddervold, Akasemi Newsome, two anonymous reviewers, and participants at the June 2015 GovInn Workshop and the January 2017 GLOBUS workshop. I am also grateful to Katherine Sun for her research assistance. This work received support from “GLOBUS - Reconsidering European Contributions to Global Justice,” which is an EU Horizon 2020 project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Mutual recognition is defined as a process of deliberation that takes into account the diversity of circumstances and interests of all involved through a process of deliberation rather than relying on universal principles of justice (impartiality), ignoring others’ non-compliance with norms (non-domination), or forcing others to comply with common rules (domination) (Eriksen 2016).

2. Field research for this paper is partly based on my attendance as an official observer at the December 2015 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and visit to India in November 2017.

3. European External Action Service, ‘Environment and Climate Change,’ http://www.eeas.europa.eu/environment/gdn/index_en.htm.

4. Personal meetings with climate officials in India, November 2017.

5. Participant observation, December 7–11, 2015 COP 21, Plenary and EU pavilion events.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [GLOBUS].