The EU Negotiates Climate Change

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is the only great power that has decisively promoted an international agreement requiring substansive emission reductions. It is possible that EU diplomacy has contributed to producing the inadequate but still encouraging results obtained in Kyoto. Although the 1997 UN conference in Kyoto produced an agreement to the effect that industrialized countries would collectively reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by more than 5%, a viable solution to the climate problem is not yet in sight. Scientists estimate that emissions of CO₂, the most important greenhouse gas, will have to be cut by 60% if further climate warming is to be avoided. However, it is clear that the EU is not strong enough to move the climate negotiation decisively towards a more viable solution without the active support of other leading countries. A static assessment examining the circumstances explains why the EU has had difficulty taking a leadership role in the climate talks. A crippled actor capability and diverging domestic conditions prevailing in the various member countries have constrained its external performance in the talks. A more dynamic analysis will have to consider that the external performance of the EU could be enhanced by the interaction between its actor bahaviour and its actor capability.