This edited volume gives an insight into climate and energy protection in China and the European Union (EU). By taking a closer look at the EU and China seperately, the book presents the current situation in terms of environmental policy and energy use/ consumption in EU as well as in China. The book broaches the collaboration of the EU and China regarding climate and energy protection. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of climate research as well as public decision makers.
This book examines why a close collaboration between the EU and China may result in the necessary push to solidify a concrete vision and a roadmap for our common future in the Anthropocene. Introducing a novel perspective and narrative on climate change policy leadership through analysis of international relations diplomacy, Kalantzakos examines the role of the US, EU and China in the global fight against climate change, as well as the way in which the EU and China have both utilized their substantial development aid as soft power tools to gain influence in developing nations.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, international relations, climate change and energy law and policy.
An analysis of the European Union's engagement with China and India on climate change policy that sheds light on Europe's claim to international climate leadership. The European Union has long portrayed itself as an international leader on climate change. In this book, the first systematic assessment of Europe's claim to climate leadership, Diarmuid Torney analyzes the EU's engagement with China and India on climate policies from 1990 to the present. Torney develops an analytical framework for assessing EU climate leadership that charts the factors driving the EU's engagement with China and India, the form of the engagement, and the Chinese and Indian response. He argues that EU engagement was driven by a desire to build its international role, growing concern regarding climate impacts, and an interest in the economic opportunities provided by the transition to a low-carbon global economy. European engagement with China and India took the form of institutionalized dialogue and capacity-building, with more extensive contact with China than with India. He finds little evidence of coherence between the EU's external climate change policies and other policy areas. Indeed, the overriding priority in both relationships was the deepening of trade. Torney shows that China responded to the EU with limited normative emulation and lesson drawing; India's principal response was resistance. He argues that both European leadership on climate change and Chinese and Indian “followership” were severely constrained by a variety of factors, including the nature and extent of the EU's capabilities and the domestic politics, normative frames, and material interests of China and India, which did not align with the EU's agenda.
This book offers a selection of views from Chinese and European experts and scholars on the most pressing environmental challenges — air quality, global warming, climate change, energy security, urbanisation — faced by Europe and China in 2014. The contributors also discuss possibilities of technical cooperation between the two sides on remedies for the domestic scene as well as contributions to international negotiations. These problems top the agenda of the new leadership in China and also feature prominently on the EU-China agenda for EU's efforts to mitigate climate change.
Climate change poses one of the biggest challenges facing humankind. The European Union (EU) has developed into a leader in international climate change politics although it was originally set up as a ‘leaderless Europe’ in which decision-making powers are spread amongst EU institutional, member state and societal actors. The central aim of this book, which is written by leading experts in the field, is to explain what kind of leadership has been offered by EU institutional, member state and societal actors. Although leadership is the overarching theme of the book, all chapters also address ecological modernisation, policy instruments, and multi-level governance as additional main themes. The book chapters focus on the Commission, European Parliament, European Council and Council of Ministers as well as member states (Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain) and societal actors (businesses and environmental NGOs). Additional chapters analyse the EU as a global actor and the climate change policies of America and China and how they have responded to the EU’s ambitions. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, EU politics, comparative politics and international relations as well as to practitioners who deal with EU and/or climate change issues.
ÔThis book is very timely. . . it provides important insights for bilateral cooperation and international negotiations. These lessons go beyond EUÐChina and EUÐVietnam relations. Many of them are applicable to other countries in Asia, a region which will remain a key priority for EU foreign and climate policy, not least as the EUÕs largest trading partner.Õ Ð From the foreword by Jos Delbeke, Director General, EC DG Climate Action The Governance of Climate Relations between Europe and Asia offers a thorough empirical study of the most fundamental dynamics involved in EU climate relations with China and Vietnam in the context of global climate governance. This book presents a study of the most important governance processes in current EUÐAsia climate relations. It focuses on in-depth empirical case studies, offering a comprehensive relational perspective. Contributions on China cover the most essential issues, interests and actors, while the inquiry of EUÐVietnam relations mainly focuses on the Clean Development Mechanism as the main channel of bilateral climate action. This landmark study will appeal to both policymakers and practitioners faced with the extraordinary task of managing the increasingly complex and multilevel interactions of current EUÐAsia climate relations as well as global carbon market watchers and professionals dealing with emissions trading in the European Union, China and Vietnam. It will also be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of international relations, Chinese and EU foreign policy, global environmental and climate governance and international law.
Energy security challenges are topping the policy agenda of the European Union and China. Consequently, policy makers of both energy import-dependent polities continue to look for new responses. But will these new policies put EU-China relations in a cooperative or competitive setting?
It is beyond dispute that both China and the European Union stand to gain from promoting low-carbon development through the dissemination of clean and renewable energy sources, as this inevitably leads to increased environmental protection. The depletion of fossil fuel resources and the accompanying changes in the global energy mix make Europe and China not only competitors in the global economic race, but also nolens volens partners. Their pragmatic partnership is characterized, on the one hand, by the need to take action to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and, on the other, by the desire to minimize the negative environmental impact of their use. Hence, the existing and emerging cooperation between the two actors, while challenging for a number of reasons, is not only an attempt to set up channels to exchange vital information, but also an exercise in setting the standards under which further cooperation will be forged.
In 2010, relations between the European Union (EU) and China reached their 35-year anniversary. Although initially centred primarily on economic cooperation, China's rapid industrialisation meant that over time this development placed increasing pressure on the environment. Keen to sustain this economic growth and ensure the availability of sufficient energy sources to that effect, China's progress in the field of renewable energy in recent years is as much about security of supply, as it is about counteracting the effects of environmental degradation and climate change.In its efforts to safeguard its economic growth, China is increasingly competing with Europe over scarce fossil fuel sources, such as natural gas from Central Asia. The focus of EU-China energy cooperation is therefore structured in relation to managing the latter's energy demand to limit its impact on climate change and the environment, as well as in terms of relieving pressure on the Union's own security of supply.Particularly since the second half of the 2000s, much has changed in China after the adoption of the Renewable Energy Law (REL or "the Law") and the establishment of the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change at the 2005 EU-China summit. Departing from a brief chronological analysis that dates from the early 1990s until today, this Working Paper zooms in on two particular areas: (i) EU-China cooperation on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies; and (ii) the development of the Chinese renewable energy market. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations on specific challenges identified within these two sectors of cooperation.
Over the past decade, the EU and China have expanded their relations beyond a focus on economic and trade issues to the sphere of security. Taking a broad definition of security, a multidisciplinary approach, and a comparative perspective (including scholars from both Europe and China), this book provides an in-depth analysis of the extent to which the EU and China not only express similar threat concerns, or make declarations about joint responses, but also adopt concrete measures in the pursuance of security cooperation. In particular, the book seeks to explore a range of key themes in the field of EU-China security cooperation such as nuclear proliferation, international terrorist threats and cyber attacks. Besides providing an overview of the areas where security cooperation exists and where it does not, it also highlights the aspects of convergence and divergence and the reasons for their occurrence.
