Climate change policy in the european union : An introduction

Introduction: climate change enters the political mainstream. Inrecent years, climate change has shifted from being a marginal political issue to one that has – depending on one's point of view – potentially transformative and/or calamitous consequences for virtually all policy areas. The change in its political status has been remarkably rapid but also substantial. So when the global economy slipped intoa deep recession in the late 2000s, climate change remained alongside economic growth, employment and crime as a key political issue in the majority of industrialised states. As part of this political transformation, new actors have entered the debate. Whereas before, climate change had mainly preoccupied environmental ministries and their associated policy networks, it now attracts the sustained attention of political core executives: prime ministers, presidents and their inner cabinets. Since 2005, climate change has been a standing item at all G8 summits, and has been regularly debated at United Nations (UN) General Assembly sessions and in countless European Council meetings comprising the Heads of State of the European Union (EU). The issue of climate change has, in short, entered the political mainstream. Having struggled for years to persuade politicians totake the issue seriously, environmental actors are now finding themselvesunder intense pressure to deliver policy solutions that are sufficiently coordinated with their counterparts in ‘non-’ environmentalsectors such as energy, transport and agriculture.