Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
lead would then be too strong and cut across the EU
s basic energy model pre-
dicated on the extension of internal market rules and linkages. Traditional energy
experts and policy-makers still exhibit a tendency to dismiss foreign policy aims as
extraneous distractions. In DG Energy many bemoan the accords signed for foreign
policy reasons with key supplier countries that, they say, now stand hollow.
The UK is one of the few European countries where climate change features in
the title of a top-level ministry. The UK
'
s department for energy and climate
change was created in 2008, but is generally seen to have done little to integrate its
two component parts, energy security and climate change. The UK has made
much progress
'
in ensuring that di
erent departments and units
from across
Whitehall meet regularly to share re
ections on climate security. However, while
the UK climate change board was given a climate security mandate,
it has
considered the issue rarely and in very general terms.
A wider set of deliberations on how climate security goals impact on the EU
s
broader set of global alliances appears even further away from materialising. Not-
withstanding a small number of more developed
'
'
climate dialogues
'
, there is little
evidence that climate security has become a signi
cant factor conditioning the
shape of EU global alliances and strategies for e
ective multilateralism. The UK
and other European states are charged with failing to adjust their international
alliances in accordance with how climate change is likely to rebalance global
power.
53
One study
nds that the EU has been unable to use its bilateral partner-
ships with rising powers to entice the latter to sign up to multilateral climate deals
or to make linkages with broader politically related topics.
54
In private, participants
describe the political aspects of EU energy dialogues with strategic partners as
'
.
So, for example, diplomats acknowledge that the climate partnership with China
has struggled to gain momentum, with Beijing ambivalent over the CCS initiative,
the urbanisation project and EU support regionally for the Mekong river initiative;
moreover, they fear that a new China
empty
'
-
US climate dialogue risks excluding the
European geo-strategic in
uence over climate security. The EU (and US) have also
failed to adapt their geo-strategic alliances to the emergent importance of Atlantic
Basin energy dynamics; it is argued that this will represent an important geopolitical
framework conditioning the shift to low carbon, to which EU states have paid
insu
cient heed as they remain focused on traditional energy alliances with Russia
and Middle Eastern hydrocarbon producers.
55
Some insiders lament that in practice
the EU has backed away from its previous position that the Arctic should be
managed under a regime of shared cooperative security; it has come to accept the
notion of parcels of territory being carved out between the di
erent states, as
envisioned by Russia in particular. The EU
'
s hoped-for in
uence over Arctic
management has thus not prospered.
