Eu Response To Climate Change Governance Research

Global warming has become one of the most severe challenges facing human society. This challenge has not only endangered the mankind and its future generations, but also brought actions to reduce greenhouse gas emission which have exerted a significant and far-reaching impact on current fossil-fuel-based economic structure.As a common challenge facing the world, climate change entails collaborative response. Europe is a crucial region in the climate change debate, policy response, and international climate framework building. Therefore, it would be illuminating to study climate governance and gains and losses of the EU for the study would not only better our understanding of climate governance and help us find out best practices in this regard but also provides China with valuable experience in implementing low carbon strategy for sustainable development and participating international climate cooperation.In an attempt to conduct a systematic review and analysis of the EU's climate governance, the author started this dissertation by discussing the background and incentives of climate activities in the EU. The EU's climate governance emerged against the backdrop of global climate cooperation, and hence the international forces constitute the external cause. The internal cause of the EU's climate governance lies in its identification with the rules of good environment and society, and its positive outcome expectation of the governance. Next, the discussion and analysis of the EU's climate practices demonstrated the EU's direct climate targets and implied strategic goals, displayed the diversity and rationale of the design of climate measures and technique, and as well as the gradual integration of the EU in the process of climate governance. To be detailed, the EU proposed a highly interdisciplinary and synthesized climate policy framework underpinned by mitigation and adaptation activities; and effectively combined it the policies about emission reduction with other areas, including energy, transport, tax and technology and innovation mechanisms. On the basis of practical analysis, the dissertation turned to the research on the EU climate institutions for it is a crucial part in unearthing the essence of governance. In short, the decision-making mechanism and governance mode should be two major points in this study. The EU climate decision-making mechanism features a multi-level approach and a style that mingled super-nationalism with intergovernmentalism. The EU's climate governance reveals from a particular perspective the institutional operating within the process of European integration. Based on the traditional multi-level and network governance institution, the EU's climate governance has been forming a unique governance model which has taken into account both the relevance of climate change to environment and the transformation in social governance.After studying the major components of the EU's climate governance, the dissertation analyzed the difficulties and obstacles emerged in climate governance, and reviewed the performance of its governance. The above-mentioned difficulties and obstacles can be attributed to both structural and institutional limitations, namely the European integration and national difference in social-economic systems. Combating climate change has already become a priority for the EU. The dissertation argued that the EU could fulfill its commitments to the international society and is on track to achieve its medium-long climate objective. EU is the second biggest CO2 emitter among the industrialized countries only next to the U.S. Moreover, the European countries have already realized the fact of climate change and taken actions to fight against it, and therefore its climate governance has yielded widespread outward effects. The review of the outward effects revealed the special meaning of the EU's climate governance as the European Union has taken it as a focus to give full play to its regulative power while striving for global leadership. Last but not least, the author discussed the future development of climate governance in the EU and proposed how China can learn from the EU experience.