ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book considers the wide range of factors that help to explain why international climate negotiations have failed – political disagreements, divisive solutions, uncertainties – and the role the EU has played in them. It shows how the EU's negotiating approach was underpinned by what Underdal calls a 'politically inadequate solution design model'. Despite the EU's official rhetoric highlighting success and leadership, the book emphasizes its relative failures up until Copenhagen. It highlights how the EU had benefited from both internal 'hot air' and the EU-wide burden-sharing arrangement. In the run-up to Copenhagen, there was another reason behind the EU's calls for parties to conclude an agreement in the Danish capital: the economic crisis. The Paris Agreement became a hybrid model between the top–down elements of Kyoto and the bottom–up approach of the Copenhagen Accord.
