ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the recent developments and challenges of the European Union’s climate policy. Since the 1980s, the European Union (EU) has been a leader in global climate cooperation. At the European level, inspired by the Kyoto Protocol, it established the first international emissions trading scheme and has attempted to diffuse climate concerns into other policy areas. So far, the EU has been successful in achieving some important targets. Nevertheless, its results are insufficient and current EU policies produce controversial effects. The EU chose to focus on emissions reduction (rather than, for example, increasing carbon sinks or rethinking production processes) and to favour market-based instruments (rather than command-and-control regulations). These choices have become the norm. They limit the EU’s possibility for innovation and slows down its progress in mitigating climate change. The future of European climate policy is uncertain. The European Green Deal is an ambitious program that would represent a great leap forward in building a carbon-neutral economic model, but might be insufficient. The increasing mobilisation of citizens will probably affect decision-makers in the next few years. However, such progress towards more participation might be limited by the internal dissonances within the EU and by the influence of industrial lobbies.
