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.

The EU has, for a long time, portrayed itself as an international leader on climate change. Previous studies have tended to focus on the characteristics of EU leadership, but have failed to examine the extent to which EU leadership generates 'followship'. This book analyzes EU climate policies towards China and India in order to provide a holistic assessment of EU climate leadership, and makes three key arguments.

This book considers the environmental policies that the EU employs outside its borders. Using a systematic and coherent approach to cover a range of EU activities, environmental issues, and geographical areas, it charts the EU’s attempts to shape environmental governance beyond its borders. Key questions addressed include: What environmental norms, rules and policies does the EU seek to promote outside its territory? What types of activities does the EU engage in to pursue these objectives? How successful is the EU in achieving its external environmental policy objectives? What factors explain the degree to which the EU attains its goals? The book will be of interest to students and academics as well as practitioners in governments (both inside and outside of the EU), the EU institutions, think tanks, and research institutes.

Climate change has taken centre stage in Eurpean and international politics. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2007, confirmedthat climate change is on eof the most serious threats to international security and the well-being of human kind. At the European level, climate change has become a major agenda item regularly discussed by the European Council. Internationally, the issue has become one of "high politics". Since 2005, it has been a top priority of the G-8 Summits, and both the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly have placed it high on their agendas. World leaders are rallying to achieve a new global deal to combat global warming under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Overall, there is hardly any high-level political encounter in which the issue is not discussed. The European Union as established itself as the most ptrominent international leader on the issue. It has been one of the most fervent supporters of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, striving to sustain its leadership in the efforts to reach a new global agreement post-2012. The EU has also increasingly underpinned its international leadership position with domestic action. Most prominently, it introduced a greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in 2005. The Period 2007-2008 saw a major overhaul and leap forward in the development of a renewed EU framework of policy and legislation to address climate change. Most importantly, the new EU climate policies include a set of legislative acts adopted in early 2009 and known as the "climate and energy package" that is designed to acheve the EU's target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% and increasing the share of renewable energies to 20% by 2020. This volume provides a timely overview and assessment of the development of the new EU climate policies with a focus on the new climate and energy package. Are EU climate policies sufficient to meet the environmental, economic and political challenge posed by global climate change? How do international and domestic climate poliies of the EU intereact and are they mutually supportive? What are the prospects for the EU keeping its international leadership in the face of a more engaged US and increasingly assertive emerging economies? In addressing these questions, the volume aims to enhance understanding and contribute to further discussions on the current and potential reole of the EU in the fight against climate change.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this urgent, singularly authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical--and accessible--plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid an irreversible climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help and guidance of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance, he has focused on exactly what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only gathers together all the information we need to fully grasp how important it is that we work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases but also details exactly what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. He describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions; where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively; where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions--suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but by following the guidelines he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

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.

Comparative case studies and analyses of the influence of domestic politics on countries' climate change policies and Kyoto ratification decisions. Climate change represents a “tragedy of the commons” on a global scale, requiring the cooperation of nations that do not necessarily put the Earth's well-being above their own national interests. And yet international efforts to address global warming have met with some success; the Kyoto Protocol, in which industrialized countries committed to reducing their collective emissions, took effect in 2005 (although without the participation of the United States). Reversing the lens used by previous scholarship on the topic, Global Commons, Domestic Decisions explains international action on climate change from the perspective of countries' domestic politics. In an effort to understand both what progress has been made and why it has been so limited, experts in comparative politics look at the experience of seven jurisdictions in deciding whether or not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and to pursue national climate change mitigation policies. By analyzing the domestic politics and international positions of the United States, Australia, Russia, China, the European Union, Japan, and Canada, the authors demonstrate clearly that decisions about global policies are often made locally, in the context of electoral and political incentives, the normative commitments of policymakers, and domestic political institutions. Using a common analytical framework throughout, the book offers a unique comparison of the domestic political forces within each nation that affect climate change policy and provides insights into why some countries have been able to adopt innovative and aggressive positions on climate change both domestically and internationally.