Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The ETS carbon price fell to an all-time low during 2012. Hedegaard
'
s attempts in
2013 to revitalise the ETS have
oundered against resistance from within the
European Parliament and some member states. The Commission
oated the idea
of taking millions of emissions allowances o
the market to give the ETS back
some bite, but this idea was subject to considerable opposition in the European
Parliament and among member states.
Also pertinent, the touted nuclear renaissance is now on hold. A majority of
member states were considering moving back into nuclear power by 2010. After the
Fukushima disaster in April 2011 many backtracked, in particular Germany, Belgium,
Italy and (non-EU) Switzerland. Germany, Spain, Poland and others have been slow
to reduce state aid to the coal sector. By 2013 Europe was the second highest user of
coal in the world, as the US has switched to shale gas. European states were only
on target for their emissions targets because they were relying on coal-based pro-
duction in China and other markets. They have reduced carbon production on their
own territories but have increased carbon consumption, simply importing goods
made from carbon-rich production situated in other parts of the world. In mid-2011,
the Commission started infringement proceedings against nearly all member states for
having failed to implement the 2009 directive on the development of CCS.
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What read-over to climate security?
In short, the mainstream components of EU environmental policies have advanced
but are not without their serious shortcomings. While this topic does not purport
to study EU climate policies per se, to note the latter
s broad contours is important
to the extent that these condition the link with security strategies. Experts see the
EU has having developed an impressive leadership role in international climate
negotiations in large measure as a derivative impact of its accumulation of internal
environmental competences. The very multiplicity of actors within the EU
'
s
internal decision-making processes has created incentives for strong environmental
leadership. The EU is said to have exercised both structural and cognitive leader-
ship. This leadership has been pursued as valuable in itself and also as a means of
reinvigorating the broader project of European integration as other areas of coop-
eration have atrophied.
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Most academic work on the EU has focused on how
Union internal competences have been used as a basis for developing a role in
negotiating international environmental agreements; it is widely argued that the
Lisbon Treaty has tilted the balance towards Commission in
'
uence vis-à-vis the
member states and given a prompt to EU global environmental leadership.
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Integral to such leadership, an
of internal climate change policies
is conceived to be an integral part of the EU
'
externalisation
'
s foreign policy approach. The
declared policy is to export the ETS globally, along with the Renewable Energy
'
