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The ways in which climate adaptation is understood in the European Union is examined via three key policy documents: the Strategy on adaptation and the Green and White Papers that preceded it. Drawing on Poststructuralist Discourse Theory, light is shed on the implicit values and assumptions that underpin this recent policy initiative. The findings demonstrate a tension between the declared ambition to act on adaptation and implicit suggestions that nothing really has to change, and the challenge can be addressed by market and technological innovations, and by mainstreaming adaptation into existing sectoral policies. The policy discourse effectively serves to depoliticize choices societies make in response to climate change, presenting adaptation as a non-political issue. Insight into European adaptation discourse enables deeper understanding of recent policy developments and opens up possible entry points for critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution still represents a major environmental hazard in urban areas in the European Union ( EU). This article argues that the EU's regulatory framework in this policy area for the past decade contributed to a series of unintended consequences. The increasing influence of climate change objectives on the air pollution agenda led to a shift in the regulatory approach to emissions from vehicles by focusing solely on the overriding interest of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and developing individual policies to that effect. This resulted in a disconnect between regulatory approaches to urban air quality and vehicle emissions standards with the effect of producing unintended consequences of unlawful levels of air pollution, in particular nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions as well as unintended consequences for the car industry and consumers. The article applies Merton's framework of unintended consequences, which provides a useful explanatory model of the EU's multi-level governance process in the complex area of environmental law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution examines the role European Union (EU) leadership played in the outcome of the 2015 COP21 climate summit in Paris. The EU’s attempts to realise its bid for climate change leadership are scrutinised by investigating to what extent the EU is actually recognised as a leader by potential followers and to what extent the EU has succeeded in achieving its negotiation objectives. To address these issues we utilize survey data collected at eight UN climate summits from 2008 to 2015 and evaluate the results of the climate negotiations particularly with respect to the Union’s goal attainment in Copenhagen and Paris. Our findings, which reveal a fragmented leadership landscape in which the EU must adjust its leadership strategies in relation to other powerful actors, such as the United States and China, provide insights into leadership theory and the EU’s prospects for exerting influence as an external actor on the world stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 'Energy Union' can be seen as the most significant policy idea that seeks to reform European energy governance, policy and regional cooperation. However, so far the concept is mostly an empty box in which every stakeholder tries to put whatever is on the top of their priority list. This article reviews three major theoretical approaches to the analysis of European integration and EU policy that can be used to study the ongoing process of Energy Union formation. It then tries to structure the discussion by showing the evolution of the Energy Union concept, focusing on proposals by D. Tusk, J-C. Juncker and the European Commission, followed by a comparative analysis of four country cases representing different energy mixes and energy policy directions: Germany, France, Poland and Norway. All of these proposals are described and assessed according to their emphasis on the three dimensions of energy policy: security, affordability and sustainability. We sketch two possible scenarios for the future of EU energy policy, as suggested by the intergovernmentalist and supranationalist approaches and emphasize the potential impact of the governance mechanism of the Energy Union, which could reach far beyond what is expected and provide welcome coherence in Europe's energy and climate policy. Policy relevance The article structures the policy debate on the Energy Union, discussing the different elements and instruments proposed by key EU actors and provides a useful overview of national interests of some important players, set in the context of their wider systemic conditions and policy goals. The framework for comparing the different proposals and national positions is built around the 'energy policy triangle'. The article concludes with a discussion of possible future scenarios, as well as an in-depth discussion of the potential role of the governance mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Links between security and migration are well established and are associated with the meaning, status, and practice of borders in the international political system. This article assesses how and with what effects the effects of environmental and climate change have entered this relationship between migration and security. It does so by assessing the EU’s external governance of migration in “South Mediterranean Partner Countries” (SMPCs): Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia. It is argued that a focus on promoting “adaptation” and building “resilience” has developed that is consistent with the logic of governing migration from a distance. However, the article challenges ideas that environmental/climate change act as simple migration “triggers” and instead explores implications of movement towards and not away from risk, as well as the potential for populations to be trapped in areas that expose them to risk. It is shown that both have important implications for the relationship between migration, environmental/climate change, and security in SMPCs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although macro-level analyses of EU policy outputs are common, few empirical studies have measured the long-run evolution of the Union’s energy policy sector. This article provides an overview of European energy legislation to show past sectoral developmental trends, current characteristics and potential future directions. During this period, EU energy policy has evolved sequentially to encompass multiple sectors, including coal, nuclear energy, oil and gas production, energy conservation, market harmonisation and climate change concerns. Moreover, by measuring the velocity of legislative output as an indicator of policy activity, the overall picture is one of gradual incremental growth centred broadly on several episodes of shallow, delayed action punctuated equilibrium that has resulted in an uneven mixture of national and supranational decision-making. Expansion is perhaps set to continue along a similar path as a common EU climate–energy policy emerges, although some constraints are evident. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of the article is to show the possible effects of implementation of the European Union climate policy on the economy and the labour market in Poland. The specified research objective and introductory literature review were the basis of the following research hypothesis: the EU climate policy will cause great uncertainty in strategic sectors of the Polish labour market and economy. The hypothesis has been examined by a method based on critical analysis of Polish and foreign literature on the EU climate policy and its economic effects. The critical analysis of literature and of available statistical data and economic forecasts con- firmed the research hypothesis. It means that implementation of the EU climate policy will lead to considerable increase of uncertainty in the Polish labour market. The situation in traditional branches and sectors, such as mining, metallurgy, cement plants and traditional power plants industries is particularly worrying. On the other hand there is an expectation that in sectors based on green energy and in industries producing low emission technologies the demand for jobs will increase, but the scale of the increase is not clear and any predictions here may turn out to be incorrect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powerful political actors in the international system quite frequently adopt unilateral policies whose implications extend beyond their respective borders. Examples include financial market regulation as well as taxation, trade and environmental policies. They do so to avoid lowest common-denominator outcomes in areas where they desire more ambitious international policies, and to motivate or coerce other countries to shoulder a part of the burden associated with problem solving. This article explores whether and how such unilateralism affects public opinion in other countries, arguing that such analysis can point to external constraints on unilateralism and is worthwhile also for normative reasons. Empirically, we examine the effect of a major unilateral European Union (EU) climate policy initiative, which regulates emissions from aircraft, on public opinion in India and the United States, the two largest democracies outside the EU. Based on survey experiments, we study the effects of cost and sovereignty considerations on people’s evaluation of the EU’s new policy. The results show that both types of concern play a significant role and may act as a constraint on unilateral European climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on how the European Union (EU) has responded to climate change adaptation and mitigation and how a similar approach can be taken by the government in British Columbia. The authors explain that most mitigation efforts around the world have failed to reverse global warming, causing a great need for adaptation policies. They discuss the importance of trans-municipal efforts to address climate change, explore how local and federal governments in the EU are working together on this issue, and analyze policy programs implemented by the British Columbia Ministry of Environment.

The European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) has been a major tool of the EU climate policy. Despite its significance, the EU ETS faces serious challenges regarding its function. One of the major issues that encumber its contribution in EU climate policy is value added tax (VAT) carousel fraud within it. This paper examined the ways this type of swindle is conducted and its economic impact. It analyses the parameters that facilitate it and evaluates the responses of the EU and its Member States and mainly the introduction of the reverse charge mechanism. It finally highlights the need to implement some changes to the EU ETS, the VAT provisions, and the way the national tax authorities and the EU coordinate. Finally, it suggests the introduction of a real-time VAT collection mechanism that can be an effective and feasible solution to the problem in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in whether and how parties matter. We add to this discussion by exploring the ways in which parties matter for policy outcomes. To do this, we look at the European Union (EU) member states' progress towards the greenhouse gas emissions targets set for them by the Kyoto Protocol and the EU's Burden Sharing Agreement. We find that governments that are more pro-environment and less ideologically divided make better progress towards their targets. We also demonstrate that green party representation in government predicts convergence. This article contributes to research examining the ways in which parties matter as well as the growing literature on coalition politics and veto players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the multi-level governance of climate change with a particular focus on the European Union (EU). It examines the relationship between the EU and its Member States (the federalism dimension), particularly in relation to emissions trading, and the relationship between the EU and the rest of the world (the global dimension). The paper argues that we are witnessing a shift in the EU's climate leadership style; a shift that is characterized by an increasing willingness of the EU to use its economic power in a bid to promote effective climate governance elsewhere. We see this in relation to different sectors including aviation, biofuels, energy-intensive products and as a result of increasing EU regulation of carbon offsets in its emissions trading scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a workshop on the foreign policy of the European Union (EU), held on June 17, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. Topics discussed included the EU's activities in international climate change and environmental protection efforts and the EU's relationship to various international institutions, including the World Trade Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

This article explains why the significant changes in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) for the 2013-2020 phase were adopted in 2008. The combination of a more stringent EU-wide cap, allocation of emission allowances for payment, and limits on imports of credits from third countries have strengthened the system for the post-2012 period. This will promote reduction in greenhouse gases compared to the old system. The main reasons for these changes are, first, changes in the positions of the member states due to unsatisfactory experience with performance of the EU ETS so far. Second, a "package approach" where the EU ETS reform was integrated into wider energy and climate policy facilitated agreement on the changes. Third, changes in the position of nonstate actors and a desire to affect the international climate negotiations contributed to the reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is widely recognised as a ‘wicked’ policy problem. Agreeing and implementing governance responses is proving extremely difficult. Policy makers in many jurisdictions now emphasise their ambition to govern using the best available evidence. One obvious source of such evidence is the evaluations of the performance of existing policies. But to what extent do these evaluations provide insights into the difficult dilemmas that governors typically encounter? We address this question by reviewing the content of 262 evaluation studies of European climate policies in the light of six kinds of dilemma found in the governance literature. We are interested in what these studies say about the performance of European climate policies and in their capacity to inform evidence-based policy-making. We find that the evaluations do arrive at common findings: that climate change is framed as a problem of market and/or state failure; that voluntary measures tend to be ineffective; that market-based instruments tend to be regressive; that EU-level policies have driven climate policies in the latecomer EU Member States; and that lack of monitoring and weak enforcement are major obstacles to effective policy implementation. However, we also conclude that the evidence base these studies represent is surprisingly weak for such a high profile area. There is too little systematic climate policy evaluation work in the EU to support systematic evidence-based policy making. This reduces the scope for sound policy making in the short run and is a constraint to policy learning in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses climate change policymaking in the European Union (EU) and the lack of direction that came from the United Nations conference on climate change held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. The article discusses EU objectives for the Copenhagen meeting, EU actions taken at the meeting, the future of international cooperation on climate change, and influences that the Copenhagen meeting will have on the internal climate policies of the EU. Commentary is provided on the stance that the EU will take in future international climate change negotiations.

Rational choice models are employed to explain both the formation of states' domestically derived negotiation positions on climate change and the dynamics of these international negotiations. This analysis leads to the identification of a number of promising political strategies: taking steps to enlarge the membership of environmental non-governmental organisations; assessing whether the resources of these organisations would be more effectively spent on campaign contributions rather than other activities; using organisations such as the World Bank to assist developing countries to strengthen civil society in these countries; stepping up information campaigns; re-balancing abatement costs between the EU and the US; and making abatement more efficient by introducing an international emissions cap and trade scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory and analysis of regulation provides an understanding of climate change regulation and its limitations leading to the identification of political strategies to improve such regulation by orientating it more towards public interest objectives. Public interest and private interest theories of regulation are considered together with regime theory, which understands regulatory regimes as dynamic interactions of a variety of forces that can be altered by external pressure. One possible pressure is governmental action to increase regime transparency. UK and EU climate change regulation is used to consider whether increased transparency, in particular focused around a carbon price-based instrument with quantified emissions reductions, can shift the climate regime towards meeting the public interest. This runs up against difficulties of sociocultural plurality and the one-dimensional nature of the price mechanism. More successful strategy requires a price-based instrument coupled to transparent complementary policies and regulations that address sociocultural pluralities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of EU climate policy, a grand policy experiment, as the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. In this article, we seek to provide a broad overview of the initiation, decision-making and implementation of the EU ETS so far. We explore why the EU changed from a laggard to a leader in emissions trading, how it managed to establish the system rapidly, and the consequences to date, leading up to the 2008 proposal for a revised ET Directive for the post- 2012 period. We apply three explanatory approaches, focusing on the roles of the EU member states, the EU institutions and the international climate regime, and conclude that all three approaches are needed to understand what happened, how and why. This also reveals that what happened in the early days of developing the system had significant consequences for the problems experienced in practice and the prospects ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Great Britain's policy toward Europe as of September 2008 and how it may develop in the period to 2020. It examines policy possibilities and proposals including conditional Europeanism and a commitment to the European Union (EU), a stalemate position that could lead to possible crisis, and the development of a more committed pro-Europeanism. The authors discuss the possible scenarios and how they might impact British and EU defense policy and foreign policy, as well as the EU climate change agenda and the Euro currency. The article discusses how European integration might influence European policy development in Great Britain.

The article evaluates the cooperative federalism models. It mentions that the Warner-Lieberman bill is the most important federal legislation because it provides only a limited role for the states. Among the cooperative federalism models are the decentralized approaches taken by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Emissions Trading Systems of the European Union, and the Clean Air Act.

The objective of this paper is first to provide empirical evidence of what can be seen as a rather remarkable change in EU’s position on the use of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading (ET) in climate policy, from the role of a sceptic in the run-up to Kyoto towards more of a frontrunner. The paper argues that there is a synergistic and multilevel mix of explanatory factors for this “U-turn”, including developments at the international, EU, Member State, sub-national, and even down to the personal level. Second, the paper explores and discusses the philosophy behind the Commission’s proposal for a directive on GHG ET. Third, the paper examines the prospects for ‘success’ of a scheme for EU-wide ET using a multifaceted set of metrics. In brief, we argue that output success—the chances for having a directive adopted—hinges on the resolution of two key issues. First, whether the preliminary phase is to be mandatory or voluntary, and second, incompatibilities with domestic ET schemes. Outcome success—steering and cost-effectiveness—will in turn depend on factors like the coverage of the scheme and inclusion of project-based credits, while more long-term political implications hinges on the successful adoption and operation of the scheme.“The Proposal on emissions trading represents a major innovation for environmental policy in Europe. We are de facto creating a big new market, and we are determined to use market forces to achieve our climate objectives in the most cost-conscious way […]. The emissions trading system will be an important cornerstone in our strategy to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective way”.Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstro¨m. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights the stance taken by the European Union (EU) concerning climate protection. Undertaking of political leadership to keep climate negotiations on track; Uncertain prospects of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; Primary and secondary effects of climate protection measures; European self-interest in EU climate policies.

El artículo analiza decretos y sentencias en el área de Energía emitidos en la Unión Europea y España entre marzo y junio de 2013. Los temas incluyen el marco para establecer políticas de clima y energía en la Unión Europea hacia 2030, resolución de España sobre el valor de la producción de energía eléctrica y sentencia del Tribunal Supremo de España sobre garantía de suministro de energía eléctrica.