ABSTRACT
When Al Gore released his movie An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, climate change became the ‘talk of the town’ in Europe and North America. An issue that had hitherto interested a relatively small circle of experts and environmentally conscious citizens suddenly became a hot topic in public debate. Politicians in several European countries, including the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, embraced the issue of climate change, propelling it to the top of the political agenda in many countries. The public and political profile climate change intensified even further when Al Gore, together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The issue also received a boost at the EU level, with recurring discussions in the European Council and new initiatives being launched in subsequent years. In 2010, a separate DG for Climate Action was created to institutionalize policy making on the topic within the European Commission. Even though the ‘hype’ around climate change abated after a few years, the issue had obtained a fixed place among the EU’s political priorities, having been discussed at lower levels and in more specialist circles as long ago as the late 1980s.
