An Analysis Of EU’s Declined Leadership On Climate Change Governance

Climate change is a common problem for human beings. In the process of global governance of climate change, EU has played a leading role in the past 20 years. However, after the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, we have seen the decline of EU’s leadership on climate change governance as well as the challenge from the United States and China. What kind of role will EU play in the field of climate change governance in the future? And how will EU interact with both China and USA on climate change cooperation? There is no doubt that answers for these questions are meaningful for both pushing international climate change cooperation forward and forming new climate change governance mechanism.Therefore, this dissertation will focus on analyzing the causes and influence of EU’s decline leadership on climate change governance. Through sorting out how EU’s leadership on climate change involved before and after the Copenhagen Conference, we will find out reasons that lead to EU’s declined leadership from the perspectives of both internal and external environment. Meanwhile, by discussing the possible influence of EU’s fading leadership on climate change, we aim at finding out the new trend of climate change governance among big powers such as EU, China and the United States.