Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2012)
EU CLIMATE POLICY FROM KYOTO TO DURBAN
Abstract
The risks posed by climate change are real and its impacts are already taking place. The biggest challenge about climate change is that there is no one single answer, no one single solution. This characteristic, together with the long history of political frictions and disputes worsened by environmental stresses suggests that global climatic changes have the potential to exacerbate existing international tensions. On December 31, 2012, the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period will expire. Unless states agree to a second commitment period, requiring a further round of emissions cuts, the Protocol will no longer impose any quantitative limits on states' greenhouse gas emissions. Although, as a legal matter, the Protocol will continue in force, it will be a largely empty shell, doing little if anything to curb global warming. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, which focused exclusively on developed country emissions, the ongoing negotiations on a post-2012 climate change regime have also addressed developing country mitigation actions, without which a solution to the climate change problem is impossible. This has made the current negotiations as much between developed and developing countries as between the U.S. and the European Union. Key issues include: Legal Form; Regulatory approach; and Differentiation. By the Durban conference in December 2011 the EU needs to decide whether - and how - it will sign-up to a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. This article focuses on the European Union needs to decide whether – and – how it will sign- up a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. Because asking, whether others will act is the wrong question. The real question is whether signing- up to some form of second Kyoto commitment period will support Europe’s fundamental interests.
