EU Environmental Governance

Current and Future Challenges

Amandine Orsini, Elena Kavvatha, Amandine Orsini, Elena Kavvatha

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000176391
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Droit de l'environnement

This book presents an overview of the field of environmental law and policies within the European Union, from theoretical foundations to major issues and applied governance solutions.

Drawing on expertise from renowned academics and practitioners from different disciplines, EU Environmental Governance: Current and Future Challenges helps readers to understand the main legal, political and economic issues of environmental protection since the adoption of the Paris Agreement by the European Union in 2015, until the 2020 Brexit, European Green Deal and coronavirus outbreak. The authors examine a broad range of sensitive and topical environmental issues including climate change, air pollution, waste management and circular economy, nuclear waste, biodiversity, agriculture, chemicals, nanotechnology, the environmental impacts of trade and environmental conflicts, presenting both current insights and future challenges. Overall, this volume exposes the reader to a vast array of empirical case studies, which will bolster their training and help tackle the environmental challenges faced by Europe today.

This book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and policymakers across a broad range of fields, including environmental law and policies, environmental economics, climate science and environmental sociology.

PART I

EU climate policy and air quality

1

AN UPDATE ON EU CLIMATE POLICY

Recent developments and expectations

Claire Godet

Introduction

The European Union (EU) is undeniably a major player in climate change governance. Since the 1980s, it has developed internal policies to address the issue of climate change and carved out a role for itself in global climate cooperation. More climate policies have been implemented in the EU than in any other part of the world, and climate change has gained increasing importance on the European agenda during this period. However, while the EU has been a leader in international climate cooperation, internally its progress on climate change has been limited by political choices made three decades ago. This chapter examines both the development of the EU’s policy and the future challenges it will need to overcome.

As an environmental problem, climate change is very different from the more traditional areas of pollution, such as those related to water, waste or air quality. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are invisible, odourless and impalpable. Moreover, climate change is a truly global problem, as it makes no difference where GHGs are emitted in terms of the impact they can have on people across the globe (Delbeke and Vis, 2015: 4). Considerable scientific evidence of global warming has been presented (e.g. IPCC, 2018), and climate change’s devastating consequences have not left citizens and decision-makers indifferent. The EU has long been a leading actor in climate change cooperation, and the last few years have seen no relaxation of its efforts: a large part of the EU’s 2020 budget will be dedicated to climate change; in 2019 the European Parliament passed a resolution declaring climate change an emergency (European Parliament, 2019); and the Commission has called for a Green Deal that aims at achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 (European Commission, 2019a).

Despite these efforts, the EU remains a controversial actor. On the global scene, it has had trouble adapting to shifts in the balance of power, and it has often been accused of alienating developing countries and imposing unilaterally unrealistic targets. Internally, the EU made choices in the 1990s – such as its decision to seek to mitigate climate change through a focus on emissions reduction and the use of market-based instruments – that continue to influence its climate policy today. The EU’s strategic choices enabled it to implement the first international emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the early 2000s. However, they have also limited its actions over the last decade, and the EU has been under attack for keeping alive strategies that fail to fulfil their promises. In addition to these two factors – changes in the EU’s global role and its dedication to controversial strategies – it must now face new challenges: as citizens call for more action on the climate, the Union remains torn by internal conflicts and stuck within a market ideology that limits its ability to truly tackle climate change.

The EU has recognized the urgency of acting to limit global warming and has promised to do so at both the European and the global level. In addition, unlike other great powers, it has made significant progress in terms of its own GHG emissions, which have been reduced by 23% since 1990 (DG CLIMA, 2019a). Nevertheless, despite its best intentions, the EU’s efforts will probably remain limited if it does not deeply rethink its broader practices and ideologies. The first section of this chapter briefly sets out the EU’s evolving position in global climate cooperation and its transition from a leadership position to a mediator role in international cooperation. The subsequent section introduces the ETS, the cornerstone of European climate policies, and illustrates how the EU’s strategic and political choices from the 1990s continue to influence its climate policies today. The last section discusses the challenges the EU will need to overcome if it is to be able to implement more effective measures to prevent further climate change.

How the EU shaped global climate cooperation: from a leader to a mediator

In order to understand EU climate policy, it is necessary to take a look at the evolution of international cooperation. Box 1.1 presents a chronology of the main international and European climate policies.

BOX 1.1 CHRONOLOGY OF MAIN INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN CLIMATE POLICIES

• 1992. Adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
• 1997. Adoption of the Kyoto Protocol
• 2003. Adoption of the EU ETS
• 2005–2007. Pilot phase of the EU ETS
• 2008. Adoption of the EU’s Climate and Energy Package
• 2008–2012. Phase II of the EU ETS
• 2013–2020. Phase III of the EU ETS
• 2014. Adoption of the EU’s Climate and Energy Framework
• 2015. Adoption of the Paris Agreement
• 2019. Commission’s proposal for a European Green Deal
• 2021–2030. Phase IV of the EU ETS

Internationally, the EU is perceived as a leader in climate change policy. Compared to other great powers, it has adopted a rather progressive stance and is keen both to act as a normative power and to participate in international negotiations (Wurzel and Connelly, 2011: 9). Despite the structural challenges and internal conflicts it faces, the EU has managed to become a unified actor in global climate cooperation and takes pride in defining itself as the “world leader in fighting climate change” (European Parliament, 2018).

Since its creation, the United Nations (UN) has always been the preferred arena for discussion on environmental and climate policy. The EU began to involve itself in global cooperation in these areas in the late 1980s. Encouraged by the European Parliament’s demand for more climate policy, a joint Environment and Energy Council promised that the EU would stabilize its CO₂ emissions by 2000 if highly developed countries would take similar actions. This internal agreement enabled the EU to take a leadership role in global climate cooperation and UN negotiations, particularly compared to the United States (US) (Wurzel and Connelly, 2011: 6). Adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) marked a step forward in international cooperation. The Convention’s stated objective is “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC, Article 2). The Convention also calls for annual sessions of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to further cooperation. Despite its best intentions, however, the EU remained internally divided in the 1990s, and it signed the UNFCCC without having adopted adequate common policy measures at the European level to implement the agreement, which therefore needed to be adopted individually by EU member-states. In 1997, the parties to the UNFCCC adopted the first legally binding instrument: the Kyoto Protocol. This established obligations for developed countries to reduce their GHG emissions for the period 2008–2012. Developing countries, on the other hand, were not subjected to any legally binding targets for emissions reduction. While participating countries committed to reduce their emissions to a level of an average of 5% below 1990 levels, the EU (which consisted of 15 member-states at the time) committed to an 8% reduction (European Union, 2002).

During the preparatory negotiations for the UNFCCC, the EU advocated regulatory policies and mandatory objectives to prevent risks caused by CO₂ emissions, even though, internally, various European institutions acknowledged that regulations alone might not be sufficient to combat climate change. Viewing climate protection as a common good, the EU was in favour of coordinated effort on the issue (Damro and Luaces-Mendez, 2003: 4–6). The US, on the other hand, favoured economic measures and a New Environmental Policy Instrument (NEPI) – an international emissions trading scheme. During the final negotiations, the EU surprisingly changed its position on the matter and, for the sake of compromise, agreed to the NEPI in exchange for binding quantified emissions limitations and reduction objectives. Through its endorsement of emissions trading despite its initial aversion to the mechanism, the EU came to be perceived as a reasonable negotiator. It had shown that it was able to lead by example and that it was willing to compromise. Accordingly, when US President George W. Bush announced in March 2001 that the US would no longer ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the EU was able to step into the leader’s position with little hesitation. It addressed a strong statement to the US criticizing its decision, and the Environmental Council, supported by the European Parliament, decided to pursue the ratification process even without the US. In addition to its own ratification in 2002, the EU secured the participation of Japan and Russia in the Protocol, which entered into force in 2005.

While the Kyoto Protocol was seen as a great leap forward in global climate policy, the end of the commitment period marked the beginning of new conflictual negotiations. In 2009, the fifteenth COP in Copenhagen failed to secure an agreement. The EU was marginalized; its poor negotiation strategy led to a poor performance; and its normative power and ambition to lead by example were revealed as being too naïve for global politics. The Union had attempted to “upload its preferred policy solutions to the international level” (Van Schaik and Schunz, 2012: 183) without taking into account the constraints of international negotiations. It lost the support of developing countries when it insisted on radical emission cuts from all parties (in contrast to the Kyoto Protocol, which targeted mainly developed countries). Developing countries perceived the EU as a dominant power trying to impose its views on weaker states. Moreover, its internal dissonance decreased the EU’s credibility on the global scene and limited its ability to use unilateral and ideational leadership (Bäckstrand and Elgström, 2013). The EU’s loss of power was accentuated by the rise of formerly developing countries such as China, Brazil, South Africa and India, who began to form new coalitions among themselves.

The failure at the 2009 COP served as a wakeup call (Bäckstrand and Elgström, 2013), and in 2010, in Cancún, the EU adapted its negotiation strategy. It lowered its ambi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Acknowledgements
• List of acronyms
• List of contributors (in order of appearance)
• Introduction: EU environmental governance: current and future challenges
• Part I EU climate policy and air quality
• Part II Waste management
• Part III Agriculture
• Part IV Chemicals and nanotechnology
• Part V Reconciling environmental concerns with market imperatives
• Index