This volume is the fourth instalment of the 'Report on the state of the European Union' series. Its shows that if the EU does not want to be ruled by crisis any longer, it must invest in sustainability, political, economic, social and environmental. Europe must turn this elusive and ever-threatening 'crisis' into a chosen and meaningful transition.

Explaining the origins and key institutions, this book provides an assessment of the European Union’s leadership role in international climate change politics, with case studies on Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, businesses and environmental NGOs.

In recent years climate change has emerged as an issue of central political importance while the EU has become a major player in international climate change politics. How can a ‘leaderless Europe’ offer leadership in international climate change politics - even in the wake of the UK’s Brexit decision? This book, which has been written by leading experts, offers a critical analysis of the EU leadership role in international climate change politics. It focuses on the main EU institutions, core EU member states and central societal actors (businesses and environmental NGOs). It also contains an external perspective of the EU’s climate change leadership role with chapters on China, India and the USA as well as Norway. Four core themes addressed in the book are: leadership, multilevel and polycentric governance, policy instruments, and the green and low carbon economy. Fundamentally, it asks why we have EU institutional actors, why certain member states and particular societal actors tried to take on a leadership role in climate change politics and how, if at all, have they managed to achieve this? This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in EU studies and politics, international relations, comparative politics and environmental politics.

This book is the first of its kind to examine the role of great powers in the international politics of climate change. It develops a novel analytical framework for studying environmental power in international relations, what counts as a great power in the environmental field, and what their special environmental responsibilities are. In doing so, the book connects International Relations (IR) debates on power inequality, great powers and great power management, with global environmental politics (GEP) scholarship. The book brings together leading scholars in IR and GEP whose contributions focus on major environmental powers (United States, China, European Union, India, Brazil, Russia) and international institutions and issue areas (UN Security Council, multilateral environmental agreements, international climate leadership, coal politics). The contributors to this volume examine how individual great powers have responded to the global climate challenge and whether they have accepted a special responsibility for stabilizing the global climate. They place emerging discourses on great power responsibility in the context of wider debates about international environmental leadership and climate change securitization. And they provide new insights into how international power inequality intersects with the global ecological crisis, and what special role great powers could and should play in the international fight against global warming.

The Future of European Union Environmental Politics and Policy investigates the trajectory of European Union (EU) environmental policy and reflects on how this hugely vital policy area of the EU has evolved over the decades. Gathering together a selection of the leading scholars working on European environmental policy, the volume assesses the extent to which change has occurred in important dimensions of EU environmental policy research. These dimensions include the EU’s values and approaches; the provision of leadership; the possibilities of Brexit and the dismantling of policies; policy instruments and climate change; policy implementation and enforcement; and policy evaluation. The contributors situate their research in the context of current developments and conditions, including the global economic challenges and the rise of political challenges to both European governance and integration. Each chapter reviews the EU environmental policy over the long term and assesses the implications of current developments for the future health of European environmental policy, European integration and the environment itself. The Future of European Union Environmental Politics and Policy will be of great interest to scholars of environmental politics, environmental governance and EU policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.

Previously published as a special issue of Globalizations, this collection of essays addresses what is arguably the most pressing and urgent issue of our day - the continuing development of global environmental crises and the need for new and urgent responses to them by the world community. The contributors include social scientists, environmental historians, anthropologists, and science policy researchers, and together they give an overview of the history of the globalization of environmental crisis over the past several decades, both in terms of the science of measurement and the types of policy and public responses that have emerged to date. The specific issue areas addressed in the book cover a wide range of topics, including international environmental governance, North-South inequalities, climate change, global warming, tropical forests, air pollution, economic and paradigm shifts, sustainability, indigenous peoples and eco-conservation, EU environmental policy, the United States and politicized climate science, and more. The Globalization of Environmental Crisis will be of particular interest to all those concerned with the on-going debate over the state of the global environment and what to do about it.

The European Union (EU) has emerged as a leading governing body in the international struggle to govern climate change. The transformation that has occurred in its policies and institutions has profoundly affected climate change politics at the international level and within its 27 Member States. But how has this been achieved when the EU comprises so many levels of governance, when political leadership in Europe is so dispersed and the policy choices are especially difficult? Drawing on a variety of detailed case studies spanning the interlinked challenges of mitigation and adaptation, this volume offers an unrivalled account of how different actors wrestled with the complex governance dilemmas associated with climate policy making. Opening up the EU's inner workings to non-specialists, it provides a perspective on the way that the EU governs, as well as exploring its ability to maintain a leading position in international climate change politics.