EU CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICIES - Climate Change and European Security - page 71

core aspects of international climate negotiations. However, while the EU has a
relatively strong record in emissions reductions and renewables uptake, its main-
stream climate change policies are not so impressively far-reaching that they give the
Union a naturally climate-sensitive external-geo-strategic projection. The EU

score
environmental policies are not so unimpeachable that a lead role in the security
dimensions of global warming can be taken for granted. The regulatory bent of
much environmental policy even risks eclipsing the kind of strategic reference-frame
needed for a climate security strategy. In addition, much policy-making e

'

ort
remains focused on quite traditional parameters of energy security, in a way that is
not obviously helpful to the pro le accorded to climate security. Indeed, the priority

the EU attaches to traditional aspects of energy security has recently begun to cut
across climate security policies. Energy-related security is still deliberated as being
overwhelmingly about guaranteeing oil and, increasingly, unconventional gas sup-
plies rather than a need to pre-empt climate-induced instability. In both these areas -

climate and energy policy, respectively - an assumption that extant EU competences

naturally to provide a strong foundation for climate security is too easily

adhered to. Climate change may have established itself

' spill over '

rmly as a security issue on
the EU policy agenda, but recent years have seen it fail to advance in tangible ways
as much as other dimensions of European external relations.

Notes
1 S. Hammeling and D. Eckstein, Germanwatch Climate Index 2013 , Bonn, Germanwatch.
2 Platts EU Energy , Issue 287, 13 July 2012.
3 European Commission, ' Key facts and gures on the external dimension of the EU
energy policy ' , sta working paper, SEC (2011) 1022, pp. 7 - 8.
4 Figures from Platts EU Energy , Issue 252, 25 February 2011.
5 Platts EU Energy , Issue 264, 26 August 2011, p. 5.
6 www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-use-of-low-carbon-technologies/
supporting-pages/carbon-capture-and-storage-ccs.
7 T. Bréchet, J. Eyckmans, F. Gerard, P. Marbaix, H. Tulkens and J. Van Yperselle,
' The impact of the unilateral EU commitment on the stability of international climate
agreements ' , Climate Policy , 10, 2010, 148 - 66.
8 DG Energy, Energy 2020 , Brussels, 2011, p. 5.
9 S. Fischer and O. Geden, ' Updating the EU ' s energy and climate policy ' , Berlin,
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung working paper, 2013.
10 Euractiv , 22 May 2013.
11 European Commission, Green Paper: A 2030 Framework for Climate and Energy Policies ,
COM (2013) 169.
12 Euractiv , 27 March 2013, www.euractiv.com.
13 European Commission, Green Paper , p. 5 and p. 11.
14 N. Mabey, ' Europe has to follow its climate realpolitik ' , ESharp , 26 June 2011.
15 A. Bowen and J. Rydge, ' Climate change policy in the United Kingdom ' , Grantham
Research Institute for Climate Change, policy paper, August 2011, p. 13 and p. 16.