'EU climate diplomacy: politics, law and negotiations' by Stephen Minas & Vassilis Ntousas (eds.)

Climate change is undeniably one of the biggest challenges of our times, as it has an impact on areas of vital importance such as food security, the energy system and the wellbeing of people and the environment.

'EU climate diplomacy: politics, law and negotiations' takes stock of EU climate diplomacy and outlines scenarios for its future. It builds on the 2016 collaboration between the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the Transnational Law Institute (TLI) of King's College London and Fondation Jean-Jaurès. At that time, the Paris Agreement had already been adopted on 12 December 2015 and had entered into force on 4 November 2016.

"The European Union and its Member States have long been crucial leaders in the response to climate change, through domestic policies and international aid and through multilateral and bilateral diplomacy to raise the sights of collective action,"  write editors Stephen Minas and Vassilis Ntousas. In a time of disruption, when populism is on the rise in many countries, attention in the EU is focused on Brexit and the US has announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, "the onus on the EU to provide leadership in the diplomacy of climate change has never been greater."

The book is organised into four sections, bringing together different perspectives on EU climate diplomacy. In the introduction (Section 1),  the editors present the disruptors to climate diplomacy and the main findings of the book's contributors.

Section 2 is dedicated to politics. In this section, Robert Ladrech argues that EU member state party politics influences EU climate policy, while Emily Barritt reminds us that diplomacy is connected to democracy and, in the case of climate change, the consequences of this connection are stark. Climate change does not respect borders and EU climate diplomacy should aim to achieve "a just global response to the problem". Hayley Walker and Katja Biedenkopf then present the historical evolution of EU climate leadership and four scenarios for its future.

In Section 3, entitled 'Law', George Dellis and Eugenia Giannini reveal the relationship between domestic and EU policy developments using Greece as a case study on climate change and clean energy. Stephen Minas then writes about the Energy Community and the extension of EU climate governance.

Section 4, 'Negotiations', addresses international cooperation in the field of climate technology, both within multilateral fora and through bilateral agreements. Rafael Leal-Arcas and Eduardo Alvarez Armas present the climate–energy–trade nexus in EU external relations.

The book offers readers a bigger picture of the EU's strategy for addressing climate change in the 21st Century through the lens of international law. Indeed, most of the 17 contributors of this book have a law background, ranging from practitioners to scholars.

The Council Library attended the book launch at the FEPS headquarters on 6 February 2019.  Both editors participated in the presentation, together with Professor Robert Ladrech, one of the contributors to the book, MEP Arne Lietz (S&D) and Charlotte Billingham, who hosted the event as Executive Advisor at FEPS.

Stephen Minas is Assistant Professor of Law at the School of Transnational Law at Peking University, a senior research fellow at the TLI and an adjunct fellow in Climate Law and Governance at King's College in London. Vassilis Ntousas is International Relations Policy Advisor at FEPS.

If you would like to read this book it is available at the Council Library and can be requested via Eureka

This book review does not necessarily represent the positions, policies, or opinions of the Council of the European Union or the European Council.

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