The EU’s different faces in climate diplomacy: leadership, interests, and responsibilities

ABSTRACT

Climate change politics is a key area where the EU demonstrates an ambition for global leadership. Yet, analysts and practitioners point to significant disconnections between the EU’s discourse and practice in this area. In what particular ways do these disconnections occur? This article uses the concepts of ‘organised hypocrisy’ and ‘organisational façades’ to address this question. Offering a framework to analyse the EU’s talk, decisions, and actions in climate diplomacy, these two concepts provide a nuanced understanding of the way in which the Union handles conflicting demands from strategic actors in global climate politics. This article argues that engaging in hypocrisy by portraying different facets of the Union has been a primary way in which the EU has managed to adapt its negotiation positions in climate diplomacy by addressing conflicting external conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate diplomacy
• environmental foreign policy
• organised hypocrisy
• organisational façades
• organisation theory

Introduction

The European Union (EU) keeps an increasing ambition to influence its international environment while trying to undertake external actions distinct from other actors on the basis of its avowed values. Especially since the Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker, the Union has been demonstrating an ambition to have an international influence by connecting its different activities and motivations as well as working with other actors (European Parliament 2019). Such ambitions are perhaps most noticeable in the EU’s external environmental policy and response to climate change. In its relations with the wider world, the Union has long aspired to global leadership by working for ‘a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment’ and ‘contribut[ing] to […] the sustainable development of the Earth’ (Treaty on the European Union, Articles 3 and 5). In parallel, the EU has promoted a number of international environmental standards and sought to ‘lead by example’ (Vogler 2005; Baker 2006; Wunderlich 2020) as a ‘green normative power’ (Falkner 2007). Its continuing and strong international commitment to combating climate change is also evident in 2016 Global Strategy, which states that the EU ‘will increase climate financing, drive climate mainstreaming in multilateral fora, raise the ambition for review foreseen in the Paris agreement, and work for clean energy cost reductions’ (Council, 2016, 40). More recently, the 2019–2024 Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen presented a comprehensive climate change legislation package, known as the ‘European Green Deal’ (European Commission, 2019), to the Council and the Parliament as the EU’s ‘hallmark policy’ (Von der Leyen 2019, 4).

Despite such ambitions, a significant gap persists between the EU’s discourse and practice, which spawned extensive analyses. For some, despite its discourse framing environmental problems as ecological matters, the EU’s climate diplomacy is mainly driven by political-economic interests (e.g. Falkner 2007; Schreurs and Tiberghien 2007; van Schain; Schunz 2012). Others argue that the Union’s external ambitions face implementation gaps due to heavy legislation costs and contrasting member state interests (Buonanno and Nugent 2021). Whilst changes in the EU’s discourse and practice have been studied in detail (e.g. Torney, 2015; Oberthür and Groen 2018; Burns and Tobin 2020), existing research often frames the relationship between the EU’s discourse and actions by reference to a ‘strategic turn’, meaning that the EU sought to manage its response to climate change to ensure the support of internal and external stakeholders (e.g. Oberthür 2011; Schunz 2019; Siddi and Kustova 2021; Von Lucke 2021). However, existing scholarship into the EU’s climate activity does not directly address how precisely the EU uses its discourse and practice to appeal to conflicting demands in its international negotiation environment in climate politics while attempting to maintain its credibility (e.g. Falkner 2007; Steinebach and Knill 2017; Burns, Eckersley, and Tobin 2020; see for a review Schoenefeld and Jordan 2019). As a result, the role of the instruments the EU uses when interacting with its negotiation environment in the emergence of these discrepancies is left underexplored. For instance, do the Commission’s press releases reflect a particular facet of the EU, while the Council conclusions portray the EU as a different type of actor?

This article seeks to contribute to the literature on the EU’s changing role and policies in climate diplomacy by specifying the disconnections between the EU’s discourse and action in global climate politics with a focus on the declaratory outputs of the EU’s climate diplomacy. In doing so, the article approaches these disconnections from the perspective of two concepts in organisational studies, namely organised hypocrisy and organisational façades. Operationalised through the construction of organisational façades, organised hypocrisy provides a basis for considering in more detail the disconnections between the EU’s discourse and practice in its official external relations and representation in global climate politics. This approach helps specify these disconnections by revealing the different, and often conflicting, purposes that the EU seeks to fulfil in its environmental foreign policy. As will be shown below, such an understanding suggests that focusing on how the EU uses its key organisational outputs, namely its talk, decision, and actions, to respond to external demands in its negotiation environment are crucial in understanding the precise manifestations of the discrepancies between the Union’s discourse and practice in its climate diplomacy.

This article argues that to gain and maintain legitimacy and credibility as perceived by the strategic actors in climate change policies, the EU uses its talk, decisions, and actions to build façades that address different and often conflicting demands. In this sense, this article also offers a contribution to organisational and management studies by operationalising organised hypocrisy through the construction different sub-structures, namely organisational façades (e.g. Cho et al. 2015; Maroun 2018). Like much of the recent literature, this article focuses on the EU’s climate leadership during the period covering the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) between 2009 and 2015 (e.g. Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013; Delreux 2014; Cross 2018; Oberthür and Groen 2018). Although discrepancies in the EU’s environmental foreign policy and climate diplomacy are not unique to this period, the host of changes in the EU’s organisational environment with the global financial and economic crisis from 2008 onwards have increased the likelihood of inconsistencies between the EU’s discourse and practice in environmental matters (Slominski 2016; Knill, Steinebach, and Fernández-i-marín 2020, 367). In particular, during the period between COP15 and COP21, the EU reoriented from reformist to realistic negotiation positions in climate diplomacy (Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013; Oberthür and Groen 2015; Parker et al. 2012; Parker, Karlsson, and Hjerpe 2017; Aamodt and Boasson 2020). Furthermore, recent research using organised hypocrisy to examine the EU’s discourse and practice has focused on the EU’s arms trade policy (Hansen and Marsh 2015), CSDP operations (Cusumano 2018), and asylum policies (Lavenex 2018). Notwithstanding the global security risks of climate change (e.g. Bremberg, Sonnsjö, and Mobjörk 2019; Youngs 2020), findings in most of these policy fields may not resonate in the case of the EU’s role in international climate politics, not least because the kind of security dimension that underpins these policy areas is arguably missing in the climate case. To the extent the concept of organised hypocrisy was applied to the EU’s environmental policy, this was done so to investigate the Commission’s environmental policy entrepreneurship within the EU (Knill, Steinebach, and Fernández-i-marín 2020).

This article starts by outlining the EU’s ambitions for a global leadership in climate change politics and the gaps between its discourse and practice in this domain. Subsequently, it outlines the concepts of organised hypocrisy and organisational façades. These concepts are then applied to the EU’s talk, decisions and actions in its climate diplomacy between COP15 and COP21. The concluding section discusses the implications of the empirical analysis and poses questions further research can address.

The EU’s global leadership in global environmental politics

The EU aspires to be a leader at a global scale in environmental policy and climate change (Bretherton and Vogler 2006; Lenschow 2015; Le Cacheux and Laurent 2015; Youngs 2020; Schoenefeld and Knodt 2021). Acting through its institutions and diplomatic missions, the EU expanded its foreign policy on these issues to bilateral meetings and multilateral platforms (Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2008). Because the EU’s proclaimed leadership is based on, among other things, an endeavour to change the behaviour of others in line with the Union’s normative foundations, global environmental and climate change politics are also accepted as an international venue for the EU to affect the behaviour of other actors in line with its own norms (Manners 2002; Oberthür 2009; Parker and Karlsson 2010; Kelemen 2010; Van Schaik and Schunz 2012). Similarly, as far as the official discourse is concerned, the external dimension of the EU’s environmental policy is believed to follow the Union’s foreign policy which is built on strong normative expectations and moral commitments (Council 2016). This draws attention to the ideational dimension of foreign policy, where norms are often understood as sets of behavioural practices and rules in line with an actor’s distinct identity (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Therefore, a key question has been whether the EU, as a ‘(green) normative power’, ‘[spreads] certain norms or values concerning the protection of the environment in its external relations’ (Groen 2015, 891; also see Baker 2006; Falkner 2007; Lenschow and Sprungk 2010; Van Schaik and Schunz 2012).

Yet, policymakers and analysts cast doubts against the EU’s action in global environmental politics informed by normative values. As stated by Frans Timmermans, the Commission’s executive Vice President for the European Green Deal, other actors adjust their behaviour ‘not […] just because of European leadership [but] out of well-understood self-interest’, and the EU has ‘every right to protect [its] industries’ in proclaiming a normative leadership (Timmermans 2020). Scholars also suggest that whilst the EU’s attempts to demonstrate consistency in environmental foreign policy may be indicative of ‘the EU’s commitment to the norms it was aiming to export, it cannot be considered the main factor for credibility’ (Scheipers and Sicurelli 2007, 452).

Nonetheless, the EU is still expected to practice its ‘(green) normative power’ in global environmental and climate change politics (Falkner 2007) and maintain its international profile by defending and diffusing the overarching principles, such as sustainable development and multilateralism (Nicolaidis and Nicolaidis 2006; Meunier and Nicolaidis, 2017). Discrepancies between the Union’s discourse and practice in doing so are problematic, since without a certain level of consistency between talk and action, the EU will be seen not only less credible but also less capable to change the behaviour of other actors (Barroso, 2009a). Interestingly, despite the aforementioned widely held argument that the EU’s environmental foreign policy presents ‘talk in accordance with one set of norms, make decisions in accordance with another, and act according to a third’ (Brunsson 2009, 79), there is a lack of engagement with the concept of hypocrisy. The idea that the EU engages in hypocrisy by developing multiple façades provides an alternative perspective to the discrepancies between the EU’s discourse and practice in climate diplomacy. The next section explores these ideas in more detail.

Organised hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

Oxford English Dictionary defines hypocrisy as ‘the assuming of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real character or inclinations’ (Oxford English Dictionary n.d.). The concept of organised hypocrisy, however, does not necessarily point ‘virtue’ or ‘goodness’, instead referring to an organisation’s adjusting of its talk and decisions in one direction and actions in another, often opposite, direction (Brunsson 2007, 115). Therefore, definitions of hypocrisy within organisational studies do not necessarily focus on the moral dimension of the term.

In a situation of organised hypocrisy, an organisation’s talk, decisions and actions are related to one another in a particular way, where ‘talk or decisions in one direction decrease the likelihood of corresponding actions, and actions in one direction decrease the likelihood of corresponding talk and decisions’ (Brunsson 2003, pp. 205–206). This situation of ‘decoupling’ results in the organisational outputs of talk, decision, and action systematically contradicting each other as these outputs are adapted to different norms (Brunsson 1989, 172). Indeed, although scholarly definitions and analyses often separate talk and decisions from actions, this does not mean that the first two organisational outputs are necessarily aligned with each other. Instead, it is implied that talk and decisions are mainly declaratory outputs, whereas actions are more implementation-oriented.

Talk, decisions, and actions can also ‘counter-couple’ each other, where ‘talk and decisions “compensate for” inconsistent action, and vice versa’ (Lipson 2007, 10). In this way, an organisation can engage in less costly activities by, for example, talking about the social dimension of environmental issues publicly or translate this talk into decisions about future possible actions, while focusing more significant resources to address economic expectations that do not impose too much of a burden on specific sectors (Cho et al. 2015, 82; also see Brunsson 2007, 128; Ahrne, Brunsson, and Kerwer, 2019). Organised hypocrisy is in this way different from propaganda, which refers to an actors’ often manipulative moves to reflect a certain image of itself or a phenomenon. Instead, organised hypocrisy is an organisational behaviour where an organisation tries to address the conflicting expectations of its internal and external stakeholders by decoupling its organisational outputs from one another. Therefore, hypocrisy might even refer to discourse or action that contradicts an actor’s propaganda (Cour and Kromann 2011).

While these points are mainly derived from the literature analysing private sector companies and domestic political organisations, hypocrisy is not uncommon within international politics where actors interact with one another in an international system lacking a globally-applicable structure to resolve tensions between conflicting interests at various levels (Krasner 2001, 176). For Krasner (1999, 66), organised hypocrisy is even ‘more prevalent in the international environment [where] there are more constituencies to manage, [and] domestic actors are joined by international ones’, including in global environmental and climate change politics (e.g. Hsu 2015).

As a multi-level actor representing different groups, interests and norms, the EU also operates within a context of international diplomacy that lacks a universal mechanism to resolve tensions between conflicting material and normative pressures (Hirschmann 2012; Bernstein 2020). The EU can therefore not only be prone to, but even depend on, organised hypocrisy (Lavenex 2018). For instance, the EU can use its external environmental actions to respond to political and economic demands of actors it interacts in global climate politics, such as developed and developing countries, while symbolically using its talk and decisions for different purposes, such as appeasing ecological and societal concerns. In such a situation, engaging in hypocrisy may in fact be functional for the EU, as talking and acting in other directions while making decisions in yet another can help the EU in satisfying potentially inconsistent demands (Brunsson 2007, 155). In this sense, discrepancies between the EU’s discourse and practice does not necessarily impede the EU from pursuing its goals within COP, though without credibility and consistency, it becomes less likely for the actors in the EU’s negotiation environment to follow the Union’s leadership (Elgström 2015).

Hypocrisy’s function of responding to conflicting demands is also relevant to an important question about this article: Do the inconsistencies across the EU’s organisational outputs simply reflect the EU’s nature as a multi-level political entity, or are they also affected by how the EU is perceived in its negotiation environment in climate change politics? After all, the concept of organised hypocrisy will not provide much distinctive analytical leverage if it is simply a result of the EU’s complexity as a multi-level political entity, because these inconsistencies are often exhibited by other multi-level actors at the international stage due to their own complex nature. Thus, it is also necessary to consider whether the existence of organised hypocrisy and façades are affected by how the strategic actors that the EU interacts in climate diplomacy perceive the EU. On the one hand, the strategic actors the EU engages in the context of COP negotiations expect from the EU to be a consistent actor and they tend to follow the EU when they perceive the Union’s policies as consistent (Elgström 2007, 952; Lucarelli 2014). On the other hand, the EU also needs to address the interests of these actors in COP negotiations, which include both developed and developing countries, so that it is recognised as a credible actor by them (Elgström 2007). As previous research has shown, these demands often clash with one another (Parker, Karlsson, and Hjerpe 2017). In line with the concepts of organised hypocrisy, to respond these conflicting demands, the EU constructs its talk, decisions, and actions in different ways.

Another important and related point to address is whether, if at all, the hypocrisy the EU engages with is different from other manifestations of such a common phenomenon in international politics. For example, is the EU more hypocritical than other actors, or is there anything particular about the EU’s hypocrisy? After all, similar to many other actors in international politics, the EU can overreach in its normative claims. Yet, compared to states, the EU as a multi-level actor may develop not only complex but also isolated organisational outputs (talk, decision, and action) and sub-structures (organisational façades) to respond to specific demands by the actors in its negotiation environment in global climate politics (Hill 2016). Importantly, the EU may orchestrate its talk, decisions, and actions across a set of independently developed organisational façades that are constructed by different policymaking agencies within its multi-level political structure, such as the Commission and the Council Presidency. These façades serve for various purposes such as meeting rational norms, creating legitimacy, and supporting the Union’s international image.

Organisational façades

The above overview of organised hypocrisy suggests that rather than unified actors that seek societal legitimacy, organisations are a set of actors that handle potentially conflicting demands independently. An implication of this discussion is that organisations may develop different sub-structures to respond to specific demands so that independently developed responsibilities and processes for handling conflicting pressures are less likely to be questioned (Cho et al. 2015). In organisational theory, these sub-structures are described as organisational façades, referring to ‘a symbolic front’ erected by the organisation to respond to different demands (Abrahamson and Baumard 2008, 438). In this way, organisational façades offer a way for organisations to maintain legitimacy by continually engaging in hypocrisy (Hermann 2019, 277). Importantly, organisations use talk, decisions, and actions to build these façades (Cho et al. 2015).

Originally, an organisation was assumed to display a unitary and steady façade against its outside environment (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Lindblom 1994). Yet, Abrahamson and Baumard (2008) proposed that an organisation could simultaneously develop and maintain multiple and somewhat isolated façades. Accordingly, the authors identify three types of façades, each serving for particular purposes. First, organisations develop a rational façade to ‘conform to expectation or norms that run the firm rationally’ (Abrahamson and Baumard 2008, 443). In this sense, a rational façade responds to different shareholders demands to fulfil mainly short-term, economic imperatives, and it is used to convince stakeholders that problems are addressed in consideration of the optimal outcomes in light of these imperatives (She and Michelon 2019). Rational façades are essentially driven by a logic of consequences that seeks to reassure concerns about risks to future cash flows are under control (Maroun 2018, 171).

Yet, ‘conforming to existing norms of rationality does not always suffice’, and organisations may also be expected to use new and improved management techniques (Abrahamson and Baumard 2008, 444). In this sense, progressive façade aims to demonstrate that newest and most improved techniques are used to reinforce the rational façade, and to reflect the organisation’s progress towards its committed goals and objectives (Hermann 2019, 278). Progressive façade also aims to show that the organisation is making progress towards its committed goals and objectives through continuous investments, research, innovation, state-of-the-art technologies, and collaborating and partnerships with other organisations (Maroun 2018).

Decision-makers should also signal that their organisations follow norms that are seen legally and socially appropriate. To satisfy social demands such as safety of products, fairness of disclosures, support to communities, and reduction of poverty, organisations have to display ‘the signs of respectability and financial solvency in order to create a reputation’ (Abrahamson and Baumard 2008, 444). In this sense, reputational façade aims to convince the stakeholders that the organisation is acting in line with ethical principles and to underline the positive impacts of the organisation by addressing mainly the organisation’s social underpinnings (Hermann 2019, 2777).

Applying hypocrisy and organisational façades to EU’s climate diplomacy

Before outlining how this article will empirically analyse the EU’s talk, decision, and action in climate diplomacy, it should also be noted that the multi-level nature of EU policymaking can create some methodological problems for the present investigation. Especially in the EU’s complex diplomatic structure comprised of multiple levels of agency in global environmental issues, it is difficult to identify the agents of these organisational outputs (Oberthür and Groen 2018; Biedenkopf and Petri 2019). In terms of representation at the COP meetings, the EU, alongside its member states, is recognised as a formal member to and party within UNFCCC. While not having its own separate voting rights in the UNFCCC, on areas of exclusive EU competence the Union does exercise the right to vote with the number of votes equal to the number of its member states (Schunz 2012). The EU’s formal membership to UNFCCC also means that it has recognition at the COP meetings, while it enjoys a meaningful degree of autonomy in terms of ‘goal formation and control of relevant governance resources’ (Gehring, Oberthür, and Mühleck 2013, pp. 852–853; Duke 2017). In terms of the agency in the declaratory outputs in the EU’s climate diplomacy (organisational talk, decision, and action), the Commission and the European Council have been increasingly involved in the making of the EU’s external climate policy, and the EU’s positions in the COP negotiations are formulated with the input of these two actors within the EU (Schunz 2012; Groen and Niemann 2013). Therefore, the EU’s declaratory outputs in the form of talk, decision, and action will be identified by looking at the documents of these institutions.

Against this background, I operationalise hypocrisy within the EU’s climate diplomacy through the Union’s construction of rational, reputational, and progressive façades. Therefore, in order to explore whether the EU engages with hypocrisy, I look at whether the EU’s talk, decisions, and actions contain examples of different façades. To identify the EU’s foreign policy statements relevant to environment and climate change, I searched for the words climat*, environm*, sustain*, and temperature, with asterisks as placeholders. To be sure, not all statements associated with the EU’s climate diplomacy contain elements that could refer to economic, environmental, and societal frames. For instance, some statements describing the EU’s climate diplomacy activities only mention that negotiations with third countries covered ‘climate change, sustainable development, clean and secure energy’ (e.g. European Commission, 2013a), which in itself is not suggestive of a substantial policy discourse or policy outcome. To allow for a robust distinction, each document was thus examined in context. Those documents containing terms such as ‘environment’ or ‘climate change’ but concerning topics that are not directly related to the EU’s environmental policy were not included.

In order to determine which façade is based on which level of output, namely talk, decisions, and actions, I analyse qualitative evidence related to the EU’s environmental foreign policy and climate diplomacy between COP15 and COP21, a period during which the EU made substantial changes in its climate diplomacy (Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013; Oberthür and Groen 2015; Parker, Karlsson, and Hjerpe 2017; Aamodt and Boasson 2020). Talk in the EU’s climate diplomacy refers to generic and descriptive disclosures, as well as broad descriptions and commitments of an ideal or desired outcome. It has a symbolic function as it lacks ‘concrete plans’ and ‘details of implementation’ (Cho et al. 2015, 86). To identify how the EU constructed environmental issues publicly through its talk over time, I analyse the statements of Commission officials, as well as press releases of the Commission and Council presidencies between COP15 (7–18 December 2009) and COP21 (30 November-1 December 2015). In contrast to talk, decisions ‘have a tangible and to some extent detailed outline of forthcoming activities’ (Cho et al. 2015, 87). Hence, they do not necessarily lack specific plans for action, instead transferring the talk into official policy proposals. To examine the EU’s decisions in climate diplomacy, I analyse Council conclusions, (Council proposals for) regulations, directives, and EU position papers related to the climate conference at hand by using Consilium and EUR-Lex data search services. Finally, while talk and decisions refer to the formation of statements as preconditions for action, actions refer to specific forms and patterns of activity (Neumann, 2002 2002, pp. 630–631). Actions in the EU’s climate diplomacy therefore depict the Union’s activities that put decisions into practice (Cho et al. 2015, 86; Knill Steinebach, and Fernández-i-marín, 2020, p. 366). At the same time, the aforementioned theoretical framework based on organised hypocrisy recognises that substantive actions may not correspond to previous policy commitments. I account for the EU’s environmental foreign policy actions by extracting these activities from the annually published general reports on the activities of the EU and annual reports from the High Representative of the European Union on the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). As another essential element of the analytical framework described previously, the analysis will also take into account the expectations and perceptions of the actors that the EU engages in the climate diplomacy. The perceptions of the strategic actors with which the EU engages through its climate diplomacy have been identified by referring to evidence from secondary research on the external image of the EU’s climate diplomacy.

Subsequently, in analysing which organisational façade (rational, progressive, or reputational) the EU constructed through its declaratory outputs (talk, decision, and action), I identified documents containing either an economic, environmental, or societal frame. At this point, it is important to note that a document can simultaneously include words that suggest different frames. Indeed, previous research demonstrated the EU’s usage of ‘mixed frames’ in climate diplomacy: neither purely framing its environmental foreign policy in an economic or social responsibility sense (Oberthür 2011). To address this issue, I have identified the documents that clearly contained a pattern based on words that are linked with these organisational façades and were identified based on the previous literature as well as while reading through the documents. The list of words that are linked with particular façades and used to assess the relative prominence of each façade can be seen in Table A1. The relevance of documents was evaluated manually by weighting each statement by the dominant organisational façade through the use of qualitative analysis software MaxQDA. In line with the analytical framework described above, the coding through MaxQDA had a threefold focus: how climate change was problematised as an economic and political issue (rational façade); what steps were proscribed to manage the impact of climate change (progressive façade); and how the EU presented its policies to the societal and moral values (reputational façade). Table 1 outlines the operationalisation criteria against which each organisational façade is identified in the documents.

Table 1. Operationalising the three organisational façades.

Façade	Operationalisation
Rational	Tackling climate change as an opportunity for market mechanisms and cost-efficiency, recognition of member states’ and external actors’ voluntariness, non-binding and ad-hoc measures
Progressive	New solutions to promote future-oriented adaptation and mitigation targets, importance of civil society
Reputational	Broad environmental norms and principles, ambitious and concrete targets, recognition of local level and differences with the EU

Hypocrisy and façades in the EU’s climate diplomacy between COP15 and COP21

Talk

Figure 1 illustrates the frequency of economic, environmental, and societal frames in the EU’s climate diplomacy discourse between COP15 and COP21.

Figure 1. Façades in the EU’s talk in climate diplomacy.

Figure 1 indicates that while the EU has continuously used ecological and societal frames that are in line with progressive and reputational façades, it became increasingly oriented towards a rational façade. As stated, rational façade is identifiable when the EU posits that environmental action is linked to a conception of sustainability that reflects environmental and climate change efforts within the framework of economic rationality. Rational façade is noticeable in the orientation of the EU’s climate diplomacy towards engaging (potential) allies and like-minded states (Oberthür and Groen 2015). In COP15, the Union initially insisted that the only acceptable outcome of negotiations was a legally binding agreement, but this demand was found unacceptable by the US and the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). As a result, the US and BASIC countries were not receptive of the EU’s norm-based position that clashed with the geopolitical dynamics of the negotiation context in COP15 (Van Schaik and Schunz 2012). Without the support of these countries, the EU had little chance to shape the final outcome of negotiations (Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013, 1379; Vogler 2017, 283).

Having side-lined by the US and BASIC countries in COP15, the EU replaced its focus on a legally binding agreement to commitments such as the use of low-carbon technologies as instruments of minimising the costs of transition into environmentally sustainable methods of operating. In COP17, for instance, a Council conclusion stated that ‘an orderly transition to environment-friendly growth is needed in order to provide clarity to investors and ensure the continuing stability of the market’ (Council 2011, 6). Similarly, during COP19, Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard stated that ‘we need to mainstream climate action into the economy, into our key political choices and into our development strategies’ (European Commission, 2013c, 2). In line with the rational façade, the Council’s talk maintained this ‘realistic tone’ by recognising that the Union’s positions in global environmental politics need to be pursued ‘according to […] economic and geopolitical realities’ (Council, 2014b, 2). The Commission also framed the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions targets as a confirmation of not only ‘the EU’s position as a world leader in the fight against climate change’ but also as a means to ‘increase the security of the EU’s energy supplies and [reducing] its dependency on imported fossil fuels and make it more competitive overall’ (European Commission, 2014b, 108). This suggests that the EU, while seeking leadership in global climate politics, also sought to respond to the interests and expectations of strategic actors in its negotiation environment.

At the same time, the EU’s move towards modest ambitions and coalition building with developed countries after COP15 has been questioned by developing countries on the basis that the EU’s negotiation positions are driven by commercial concerns (Groen and Niemann 2013). In response, key EU officials have argued that it is a responsible, trustworthy actor and sensitive to social issues such as poverty and accountability. Commission President Barroso, for example, stressed the importance of ‘safeguard[ing] future generations on this planet’ (Barroso 2009a, 2) and ‘the need to support the poorest, the most vulnerable in their fight against climate change’ (Barroso 2009b, 2). The EU’s talk after COP17 also shows a consideration of the Union’s normative commitments (Schunz 2019). Figure 1 shows that especially after COP17 in 2012 the Union increasingly emphasises not only a rational façade but also a reputational façade. High-level statements leading up to COP17 emphasised an inclusive and equitable climate change regime through ‘solidarity with the vulnerable who will be affected by loss and damage’ (Hedegaard 2011, 2). The Commission also sought to construct an image of a socially aware and responsive EU, which saw an ambitious, robust, credible agreement as a responsibility to the ‘outside world, [sic] our citizens and our children’ (Cañete 2015; also see e.g. Hedegaard, 2011, p. 1). Through a reputational façade, the Commission also highlighted its relative contributions to global fight against climate change by stressing that ‘citizens in major countries […] emit as much – or even more – than European citizens’ (Hedegaard 2011, 2). Put differently, the EU did not abandon its normative and social commitments in its climate diplomacy, but instead constructed a reputational façade by channelling its climate diplomacy towards building alliances with developing and least developed countries as well as Small Island States. This allowed the EU not only to depict itself as a responsible actor, but also to support the inclusion of a wider range of countries in the climate change politics.

Decisions

Figure 2 presents a classification of Council conclusions, regulations, Council proposals for regulations, directives, and EU position papers during the period between COP15 and COP21. As shown in this figure, while starting off from a rational façade perspective in the aftermath of COP15, the EU’s decisions increasingly constructed progressive and reputational façades.

Figure 2. Façades in the EU’s decisions in climate diplomacy.

After the EU’s failure to meet its objective to achieve a top-down framework for global climate action in COP15, the EU faced, on the on hand, a pressure to maintain a leadership in global climate politics, and, on the other, the need to be perceived by the actors in its negotiation environment as a consistent actor, especially after the US and BASIC countries side-lined the Union (Bäckstrand and Elgström 2013). As a result, the Council came to recognise that a bottom-up approach could be pursued in subsequent summits. In COP16, for example, the Council stated that ‘the determination of priorities, needs and actions should be context-specific, country-led and country-driven’ (Council, 2010, p. 5). In 2011, the Commission published a ‘roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050’ as a guidance for adapting to climate change through ‘cost-effective pathways’ and as ‘a new initiative to stimulate international negotiations in the run-up to Durban’ (European Commission, 2011, 13–14). The international dimension of this strategy was based on the EU’s cooperation with both developed and developing to implement low-emission development strategies’ through innovation, energy security and competitiveness (European Commission 2011). Failure to demonstrate concrete action in this domain was deemed as ‘losing ground in major manufacturing sectors for Europe’ (European Commission. 2011, 13).

After the abovementioned failure in COP15, the EU also sought to articulate negotiating positions that would enable it to achieve its objectives vis-à-vis the major actors such as the US and the BASIC countries. In this respect, the EU reorganised its climate diplomacy by shifting from a ‘scientific’ to a ‘diplomatic’ logic by adopting a range of new coordination and policymaking procedures such as creating a new Directorate General (DG) for Climate under the Commission (Herrero and Knaepen, 2014). This reorganisation enabled the EU to defend its positions by linking climate change to other international political issues, while at the same time leading to learning of ‘fair procedures for achieving the target of an ambitious climate regime’ (Aamodt and Boasson 2020, 19).

In addition to operating with a rational façade, the EU’s decisions also endorsed new solutions to promote the adaptation and mitigation targets through a future-oriented progressive façade. Even though the desired future outcomes may lack detail in progressive façade, this led to decision that considered the participation of strategic actors (Cho et al. 2015, 87). For instance, reflecting the developed countries’ concerns on bottom-up commitments, the Council advocated for ‘new sectoral scaled-up market mechanisms’ that could enable ‘differentiated forms of implementation’ (Council, 2010, p. 6; 2011). To ‘enable broad and effective participation’, the Council also argued that a legally binding agreement in 2015 should be able to ‘respond dynamically to evolving scientific and technological knowledge, circumstances, responsibilities and capabilities’ (Council, 2014a, 3).

As the Figure 2 shows, the importance of reputational façade as a theme in the Council decisions decreased after 2010, although assisting developing countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts has been a common theme in the Union’s decisions (e.g. Council, 2010, p. 5). Furthermore, especially in 2014 onwards the Commission and the Council became more hesitant to produce declaratory foreign policy outputs (such as position papers and Council conclusions) related to environmental and climate change policies.

Actions

In line with a rational façade, a qualitative analysis of the EU’s foreign policy actions related to environmental policy and climate diplomacy suggests a concern about the financial implications of managing climate change measures. For instance, between COP15 and COP21 the Commission recognised that its financial support to developing countries for research, development and innovation projects ‘normally did not generate sufficient financial revenues and need a high degree of subsidisation’ and these projects therefore ‘[were] expected to focus on mitigation actions’ (European Commission, 2013b). Similarly, in its negotiations with the US and China, the Commission focused on supporting low-carbon activities and promoting ‘a level playing field for energy cooperation and transparent and stable market conditions’ in the energy sector, as well as ‘economic growth and job creation’ (European Commission, 2010, p. 72).

However, the Union’s attempts to demonstrate normative leadership in global climate politics were not shared outside of the EU. For instance, the EU’s attempts to introduce human rights into environmental issues were seen by developing countries as an attempt to give bargaining advantages to the Union (e.g. Elgström 2015). To address this issue, in line with a progressive façade, the EU used innovative techniques to promote human rights and equal participation to environmental policies. In 2014, for example, the Commission launched an online consultation mechanism on issues related to the implementation of international environmental agreements (European Commission, 2014a).

EU actions that were aligned with a reputational façade recognised the significance of environmental protection. The EU engaged the least developed and developing countries as a recognition of the challenges of implementing climate change measures at a global scale (Oberthür and Dupont 2021, 13). At the same time, the Union saw these challenges as manageable if certain future initiatives are used: After COP15, the Union used its Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) and Green Diplomacy Network (GDN) to ratchet up its efforts to enhance third countries’ capabilities to engage in climate action without committing itself to quantified long-term obligations (Van Schaik and Schunz 2012, 177). GCCA provided ‘fast-start funds’ to developing countries, with a focus on Africa, where the EU provided training programmes and information sharing practices about risks (European Commission, 2012, p. 155).

To ‘forge convergence on the need to reach a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement applicable to all countries’, the Union’s external representations gathered contextual information about third countries’ positions on climate issues (European Commission, 2015, p. 236; Ahrens 2017, 15). In funding African countries’ efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the Commission highlighted that climate cooperation ‘already brought benefits to thousands of people across the African continent, but many challenges remain [and] they need to be tackled together with international partners at a global level’ (European Commission 2014b; 2016).

Overall, concepts that are in line with rational, progressive, and reputational façades were found in different declaratory outputs within the EU’s climate diplomacy. Rational façade, in which the EU emphasised financial stability while adapting to climate change, were mostly found in official documents that set out the EU’s negotiation positions and activities in climate diplomacy, such as Council conclusions. Concepts in line with progressive façade were often found in broad and future-oriented decisions, such as communications from the Commission that outlined EU institutions’ strategies rather than a response that is coordinated across the EU and member states. On the other hand, words aligning with reputational façade, such as those that promote measures to minimise the adverse social effects of measures against climate change, or obligations to society and biodiversity, were mainly observed in the broad statements and general commitments, such as the statements of the EU officials in COP meetings.

This suggests that through different organisational outputs (namely talk, decision, and action), the EU not only demonstrates discrepancies between its discourse and practice but also reflects different facets of the Union as an actor in global climate politics. Organisational talk as reflected by the Commission and the Council has often emphasised the Union as an actor who considers both financial stability and its societal obligations in its response to climate change. Decisions, especially the Council conclusions, tended to emphasise the EU’s commitment to achieve its objectives through future-oriented improvements, practices, and innovation. Actions that were outlined by the Commission and the Council are more difficult to classify with a dominant façade, though actions often attempted to portray the EU as an actor who respects the interest and perspectives of others to build coalitions through climate diplomacy. Therefore, while this discussion confirms that the EU lacks a grand climate strategy that is coordinated across the EU and member state levels (Oberthür and Dupont 2021), it adds that such lack of coordinated discourse and policy of the EU as a whole has also been a result of the EU’s use of its talk, decisions, and actions for different purposes. Importantly, the EU used its talk, decisions, and actions to respond to the expectations and perceptions of the actors in its negotiation environment. These actors included the US and BRICS countries as well as other developing countries, and their recognition of the Union’s actorness has been crucial for the EU to realise its global ambitions in climate politics.

Conclusion: engaging in hypocrisy by constructing multiple façades

It is often argued that the EU has adapted its climate diplomacy to the changing geopolitical landscape of climate politics by pursuing moderate policy objectives and putting greater emphasis on building coalition with strategic actors. This article has first shown that an important way in which the EU has managed to recalibrate its climate diplomacy especially after COP15 has been to portray different facets of the Union by using various organisational outputs in the form of talk, decisions, and actions. That is, between COP15 and COP21, the EU used its talk, decision, and action to construct different organisational façades aimed at responding to the pressures from the actors it engages in its climate diplomacy. While enabling the EU to adjust its climate diplomacy ambitions in line with the geopolitical realities of climate change politics, the EU’s attempts for ‘level playing field’ for European economies (rational façade) and innovative, cost-effective solutions (progressive façade) at times contradicted from its talk and decisions with ecological and societal focus (reputational façade). Yet, despite the negative connotations the term hypocrisy may carry on moral or ethical grounds, constructing rational, progressive, and reputational façades allowed the EU to argue that economic and environmental objectives are reconcilable rather than pitted against each other, offering a somewhat ‘win-win’ situation (Machin 2019).

A second implication of the preceding analysis is that boundaries between the EU’s organisational façades in climate diplomacy are not always clear-cut. That is, while the distance between rational and reputational façades is clearly observable, progressive façade has common characteristics with the other two façades, serving as a somewhat ‘mediating façade’ (Cho et al. 2015, 90). For instance, the Union’s actions within progressive façade such as enabling developing countries may also diffuse political pressure stemming from inaction vis-à-vis climate change, therefore pursuing the EU’s reputation. This is consistent with the previous research suggesting that separating the EU’s ‘declaratory intent’ guided by particular values and principles from its ‘actual practice’ based on pragmatic considerations is not a straightforward undertaking (Baker 2006, 78; Manners 2011, 53).

Last but not least, hypocrisy can also affect the degree to which the EU can achieve its goals in COP negotiations. The EU pursues its aims more effectively if the external perceptions on the Union associate its actions with legitimacy and fairness (Elgström 2015). At the same time, seeking to address these perceptions and expectations on the one hand and to show global leadership in climate politics on the other, the EU constructs different facets which portray different, and at times conflicting, aspects of the EU as an actor in global climate politics. Being engaged in hypocrisy in this way has been a primary way in which the EU managed to act as a ‘strategic’ actor by adapting its negotiation positions to external conditions. In this sense, hypocrisy surrounds the EU’s climate diplomacy not only as a result of the internal coherence challenges but also as a functional tool to respond to the expectations and perceptions of the strategic actors in the EU’s negotiation environment.

International climate politics is likely to remain a key agenda item in the EU’s environmental foreign policy, not least because governments and international organisations continue their engagement with the issue despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying challenges (Dupont, Oberthür, and von Homeyer 2020; IPCC, 2021). At the same time, it should be noted that this analysis is limited to the declaratory outputs of the EU’s climate diplomacy between COP15 and COP21 with a focus on the expectations and perceptions of strategic actors in the EU’s negotiation environment. Further research could address whether and how the inter‐institutional balance of power within the EU can influence the Union’s engagement with organised hypocrisy. This will help better understand how the EU can maintain a legitimate standing both internally and externally through its discourse and practice.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Richard Whitman, Eske van Gils, Robert Kissack, Mustafa Kutlay, Frauke Ohler, and Jonas Schönefeld for their helpful suggestions on earlier iterations of this paper. I also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the Journal of European Integration for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s) 2017.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.

Appendix

Table A1. Words per façade.

Rational	Progressive	Reputational
climate finance	techno*	children
voluntary*	invest*	gender
cost-effic*	innovation	biodiversity
strategic	collaborat*	indigenous
market	research	civil society
realistic	progress	human rights
feasible		women
growth		equal opport*
risk		biodiversity
efficiency
profit
revenue
economy
economic