The European Union as a negotiator in the international climate change regime

Abstract

While the leadership role of the European Union (EU) in the climate change regime has been largely acknowledged, less attention has been paid to identifying the reasons why the EU often fails in climate change negotiations. Such an undertaking is deemed imperative following the negative for the EU turn of events at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. There is sufficient literature to be found on the link between the Union’s unique and complex organizational structure and its inability to act cohesively and purposefully. This study seeks to add to this corpus by looking at the extent to which the EU has been able to learn from its mistakes and incorporate timely remedial action. Even though important, the EU’s failures as a global actor cannot be explained by only looking at its ineffective institutional architecture. A more systematic understanding of the reasons behind EU’s failures in climate talks is in fact needed. By using Underdal’s theory of ‘negotiation failure’, this study tries to explore the extent to which negotiation theory could help with better comprehending the obstacles that prevented the Union from getting more out of the climate negotiation process.