The EU and Global Climate Justice: Normative Power Caught in Normative Battles by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, European, Political Science, World, Environmental Policy
ISBN: 9781000363494
Google: ADMWEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55561453
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-02-27T08:39:13+00:00

5.2 The global south and the EU’s role in climate negotiations: lost in translation?

As already touched upon in Chapter 3, a key explanation for the EU’s limited influence during the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen was its unwillingness and inability to address recognitional justice in the climate regime. Already at the COP in Bali in 2007 it had become clear that the BASIC countries disagreed with the EU’s aim of a new agreement that was binding for all countries (Groen 2016). Instead, in line with their aim of autonomy, the BASIC countries argued in favour of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in Bali (Qi 2011) and were for the first time willing to discuss voluntary commitments for developing countries (Li 2017). However, both the BASIC countries and the G77 underlined the idea that the distinction between developed and developing countries should remain, and insisted on the Annex-1 countries fulfilling their binding Kyoto commitments (Earth Negotiations Bulletin 2007). Supported by the G77, the BASIC countries argued that the Bali text should continue to differentiate between developed and developing countries, making the latter’s commitments dependent on sustainable development and RCs (Earth Negotiations Bulletin 2007; Qi 2011). Although this suggestion was not in line with the EU’s preference for a binding agreement and heightened responsibilities for large developing countries, the EU decided to support the BASIC countries’ suggestion in order to reach agreement on a text in Bali (Qi 2011).

This experience in Bali should have made it clear to the EU that the large developing countries were increasing both their own willingness to contribute to global climate governance and their efforts to craft a new climate agreement, in accordance with their preference for autonomy and differentiation. However, in the preparation for Copenhagen, the EU engaged remarkably little in climate dialogues with developing countries, especially when it came to trying to understand other parties’ positions (Aamodt and Boasson 2020). Any views that questioned the EU’s preferred type of agreement were dismissed as less ambitious, and the EU’s climate diplomacy’s main aim was to communicate the EU’s solution (Aamodt and Boasson 2020). This lack of mutual recognition is not new, and the EU has often been criticised for ‘talking at’ instead of ‘talking with’ in diplomatic settings (Chaban and Knodt 2015). It also confirms the developing countries’ understanding of the world as structurally unequal, where the privileged are seemingly unaware of (and often deny) their privilege and insist on all parties being treated equally.

An example in this regard is the EU’s attempt to ally with the LDCs to split the G77 and put pressure on the large developing countries before Copenhagen. While being praised by some EU negotiators as an effective negotiation strategy (Interviews 2018c, 2018d) the BASIC countries saw this strategy as a confirmation of the Annex-1 countries’ hidden agenda of making the developing countries responsible for mitigation in order to pay less themselves (Abranches 2010). They thus perceived it as deepening mistrust between developed and developing countries (Dasgupta 2009; Abranches 2010). They were

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