The External Environmental Policy of the European Union

The role of the European Union in coming to the rescue of the Kyoto Protocol has certainly raised its profile, but should not obscure the fact that the European Community and the Union have long been significant in international environmental diplomacy. ¹ Alongside the member States, the Community is a signatory of many of the major environmental conventions and agreements, including the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols. Of the 71 agreements covered in this Yearbook, it has signed 39 in its own right. It is impossible to survey any of the key issues in contemporary environmental politics—climate change, biotechnology, the trade-environment nexus, sustainable development—without encountering the policies and actions of the Union.