aicgs policy report€¦ · paris agreement on climate change. germany, france, and the united...

64AICGSPOLICYREPORT

PLAYING TO ONE’S STRENGTHS:THE IMPLICIT DIVISION OF LABOR INU.S. AND EU CLIMATE DIPLOMACY

Katja BiedenkopfHayley Walker

AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY GERMAN STUDIES THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

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The American Institute for Contemporary GermanStudies strengthens the German-American relation-ship in an evolving Europe and changing world. TheInstitute produces objective and original analyses ofdevelopments and trends in Germany, Europe, andthe United States; creates new transatlanticnetworks; and facilitates dialogue among the busi-ness, political, and academic communities to managedifferences and define and promote common inter-ests.

©2016 by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies

ISBN 978-1-933942-58-2

ADDITIONAL COPIES: Additional Copies of this Policy Report are availablefor $10.00 to cover postage and handling from the American Institute for Contemporary GermanStudies, 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite700, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 202/332-9312,Fax 202/265-9531, E-mail: [email protected] Pleaseconsult our website for a list of online publications:http://www.aicgs.org

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflectthe views of the American Institute for ContemporaryGerman Studies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword 3

About the Authors 5

Introduction 7

The International Climate Change Regime and Negotiations 9

Climate Diplomacy and Leadership 12

European Climate Diplomacy and Leadership 17

U.S. Climate Diplomacy and Leadership 22

EU-U.S. Cooperation and Division of Labor 25

The Future of Transatlantic Climate Diplomacy 33

Notes 36

Support for this publication was generously provided by

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Forging a consensus on climate change action has long been a challenge for international climate negotiatorsand diplomats. Balancing the demands of domestic public opinion and politics, inequalities between devel-oping and developed countries, and the need for an enforceable international framework seemed nearlyimpossible—until the success of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

In this Policy Report, Katja Biedenkopf and Hayley Walker discuss the history of international climate nego-tiations before turning to look at the factors that contributed to the Paris Agreement’s adoption and quickentry into force. It identifies the United States and the European Union as crucial players in the diplomaticprocess, and examines the leadership styles that were employed by both actors to craft an agreement thatnot only met with their own approval, but that was accepted by other—at times less cooperative—actors.The authors acknowledge the role of EU member states in climate negotiations, and also look at the actionstaken by Germany and France, two climate leaders within the EU, with the latter playing host to the climatesummit. In a fresh take on climate diplomacy, Biedenkopf and Walker analyze key players’ Twitter feeds tolearn more about negotiators’ priorities and opinions. By the act of Tweeting, the diplomat or negotiatorreveals the value he or she places on various topics. Twitter feeds are also revealing for their information onwho is met, where, and when, and can offer more insight into the process of negotiating a climate agreementthan just the final outcome. The Policy Report concludes with an assessment of U.S. and European coop-eration on climate and the division of labor that led to the Paris Agreement. Finally, it looks to the future ofclimate diplomacy in light of the new administration that will take office in Washington in January.

This report continues AICGS’ commitment to providing innovative policy-relevant analysis of the challengesand choices facing Germany and the Unites States. We are grateful to the authors for sharing their insightsand to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for its generous support of this Policy Report.

Dr. Jackson JanesPresident, AICGS

FOREWORD

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THE IMPLICIT DIVISION OF LABORIN U.S. AND EU CLIMATE DIPLOMACY


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Dr. Katja Biedenkopf is Assistant Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium. From February throughJuly 2016, she was a Visiting Fellow and a DAAD Research Fellow at the American Institute for ContemporaryGerman Studies (AICGS) at Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC. Her research centers on climateand environmental policy. Dr. Biedenkopf has conducted research on the external effects of European Unionenvironmental policy on the United States, China, and South Korea, in particular in the areas of electronicwaste, chemicals, and climate policy. She also has worked on questions regarding global environmentalgovernance, climate diplomacy, the diffusion of greenhouse gas emissions trading, and policy entrepreneur-ship. Previously, Dr. Biedenkopf worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, theNetherlands; as a postdoctoral fellow at the Free University of Berlin, Germany; and as a doctoral researchfellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Biedenkopf held theposition of EU Affairs Manager at the American Electronics Association Europe, a Brussels-based tradeassociation.

Hayley Walker is a PhD researcher at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her research focuses on the socialand psychological management of international negotiations and on climate diplomacy. She has also beeninvolved in research projects on the effects of EU external policy on global environmental governance, EU-U.S. climate diplomacy, and capacity building in pilot emissions trading schemes in China. Ms. Walkercompleted her undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford and holds a Master of European Studiesfrom the University of Leuven.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS


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INTRODUCTION

The European Union (EU) and the United States(U.S.) were key actors in the UN FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotia-tions that culminated in the adoption of a globalclimate agreement in Paris on December 12, 2015.So far, they have remained central to ensuring thecontinuation of the negotiations on implementing theParis Agreement on Climate Change. Germany,France, and the United Kingdom (UK) have beenamong the most active EU member states on climatediplomacy, contributing to the EU’s internationalimpact. While both were key to the 2015 climatenegotiations, the EU and the U.S. are different kindsof leaders and distinct actors in international climatediplomacy. Overall, their strengths and activitiescomplemented each other during the Obama era,contributing to the success of global climate gover-nance. Time will show to what extent the Trumpadministration will disrupt this implicit transatlanticdivision of labor.

After a long and cumbersome process that wasmarked by some setbacks—most notably the failureto agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the2009 UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) inCopenhagen—the Paris Agreement can be consid-ered a major achievement. Progress was slow, withcountries only reluctantly budging from their negotia-tion positions but ultimately culminating in the adop-tion of the first global climate agreement that includescommitments by all parties. In their own way and bymaking good use of their specific structural propertiesand positions, both the United States and the EUmade major contributions to the process of reachingan agreement and bringing almost all the countries ofthe world on board.

In the absence of a consciously designed and explicitjoint transatlantic strategy, the U.S.’ and the EU’s indi-vidual bilateral and multilateral outreach and coali-tion-building efforts complemented each other andcould be characterized as an implicit division of labor:The United States did the heavy lifting to convinceChina and some other major emerging economies tomake climate change mitigation commitments of theirown and to agree to an inclusive agreement withouta clear-cut bifurcation between developing and devel-oped countries. The EU invested major efforts inbuilding a coalition with developing countries andstates that are most vulnerable to the effects ofclimate change. This coalition called for the interna-tional climate agreement to set ambitious goals andalso made an important contribution to breaking thecategorical divide between developing and devel-oped countries. Of course, the United States alsoengaged with developing and most vulnerable coun-tries, and the EU also cooperated with China andother emerging economies. Yet, when assessing theirmajor contributions to accelerating and facilitating theprocess culminating in the Paris Agreement, it is theUnited States-China interaction and the EU’sengagement in the so-called High Ambition Coalitionwith the least developed and most vulnerable coun-tries that stand out.

Both the EU and the United States had a significantimpact on the efforts to include important constituen-cies and essential participants in the internationalclimate agreement. They used their specific strengthsand cognitive resources to reach out to those coun-tries with which they expected to have the foremostinfluence in bringing the climate negotiations forward.This external engagement was of course also drivenby domestic considerations. While the U.S. was prob-ably the best actor to sway China’s position, it also


needed China’s commitment for reasons of domesticpolitics, where the climate debate often revolvesaround concerns of international competitiveness.The EU has consistently advocated a more ambitiousposition than most other parties’—especially withregard to the agreement’s legally binding nature andlevel of commitment—which reflects the EU internalstructure of climate legislation that sets a number ofbinding targets for the entire EU and for individualmember states. In the pursuit of its position at theinternational level in this regard, the EU found supportin the least developed and most vulnerable countries.

Achieving the adoption of the Paris Agreement onClimate Change was the result of a combination offactors. The U.S. and EU efforts were only parts of abigger picture, and a much broader set of actors wasinvolved and contributed to the success.Nonetheless, the United States and the EU werecrucial players without whom the agreement wouldnot look the way it does. For this reason, this PolicyReport focuses on the role of and interaction betweenthe EU and the United States in the long diplomaticprocess that led to the Paris Agreement and the rapidprocess that has resulted in its entry into force lessthan a year after adoption. Some other noteworthydevelopments such as the Kigali Amendment onphasing down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are alsomentioned.

While this Policy Report finds that the implicit divisionof labor between the U.S. and the EU has been amajor contributing factor to explaining the adoptionand content of the Paris Agreement, the future ofinternational climate negotiations is likely to be thrownoff course by the election of Donald Trump as theforty-fifth U.S. president. U.S. disengagement or aradically changed U.S. position in the UNFCCCprocess will create a leadership void that will be diffi-cult to fill. The EU has evolved as a climate leaderand developed many new skills, structures, andnetworks in the course of time. It could seize theopportunity and further profile itself as a key playeron global climate governance. China has expresseda firm commitment to climate policy, which alsoaddresses some of its other domestic problems suchas air pollution and energy security. The leadershipvoid created by the United States could provideopportunities for new or enhanced leadership by a

number of actors, including the EU and China.

The following three sections outline the internationalclimate regime by introducing the United NationsFramework Convention of Climate Change(UNFCCC) and the history of climate negotiations,the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the climatedeal struck within the International Civil AviationOrganization (ICAO), and the Kigali Amendment onphasing down the use of hydrofluorocarbons. This isfollowed by a conceptual discussion of climate diplo-macy and leadership as well as an explanation of theanalytical focus and research methodology on whichthis Policy Report is based. The ensuing sectionstrace the climate diplomacy and leadership of theEuropean Union, Germany, France, and the UnitedStates. Based on these individual accounts, transat-lantic climate cooperation and division of labor arediscussed. This Policy Report closes with reflectionson the future of transatlantic climate diplomacy.

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The United Nations Framework Convention ofClimate Change (UNFCCC) is at the core of theinternational climate regime. It was established at the1992 Rio Earth Summit, setting the long-term goalto maintain the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-sions concentration at “a level that would preventdangerous anthropogenic interference with theclimate system.”1 In 1997, UNFCCC negotiations inJapan produced the Kyoto Protocol, which imposedconcrete and binding emission reduction targets ondeveloped countries. The ratification of the Protocoltook eight years, and the United States never ratified.This left only a small fraction of global GHG emis-sions under the jurisdiction of the Protocol and in2011—when it became apparent that it would notmeet its targets—Canada withdrew, citing a “lack ofwider participation” as its motivation.2 Although GHGemission levels have indeed fallen in countries partyto the Kyoto Protocol, these reductions cannot whollybe attributed to the effects of the treaty, since otherfactors such as the post-Soviet economic recessionand the offshoring of carbon-intense industrialprocesses from developed to developing countriesand the economic downturn also played a role.3

The Kyoto Protocol’s period of legal force was dueto expire in 2012, yet negotiations to establish a post-2012 international framework for combating climatechange progressed frustratingly slowly. The 2007UNFCCC negotiation round in Bali produced the so-called Bali Roadmap, which outlined a two-yearnegotiation process that was intended to culminatein the adoption of a global climate agreement duringthe 2009 Conference of the Parties (COP) inCopenhagen.4 However, the process becamederailed and only resulted in the weak and unambi-tious Copenhagen Accord.

Heads of state and government attended the finaldays of the Copenhagen COP, and after a revisedversion of the Presidency’s draft text was rejected bydeveloped and developing countries alike.5 Thevoluntary Copenhagen Accord was negotiated at thelast minute behind closed doors between the U.S.and the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India,and China). In the final plenary it failed to garner thenecessary consensus for adoption under theUNFCCC procedure. Therefore, the CopenhagenAccord was not adopted at the summit but merely“acknowledged” after it was blocked by a group ofdeveloping countries including Venezuela, Sudan,Nicaragua, and Bolivia6 and only later included in theUNFCCC framework.

To account for the failure to produce a post-2012framework, a second compliance period of the KyotoProtocol was adopted during the Durban COP of2011 and the process of negotiating a global climateagreement was relaunched. A new timeframe wasset for the adoption of an international agreement in2015 in Paris.7 To facilitate this task the Ad HocWorking Group on the Durban Platform for EnhancedAction (ADP) was created with a mandate to beginwork on the new agreement and to identify furtherareas in which to raise mitigation ambition before2020.8

The UNFCCC negotiations are some of the mostdifficult and complex imaginable because of theplethora of actors and issues involved and the strictprocedural rules of the Convention. One-hundredninety-six countries and one Regional IntegrationOrganization—namely the European Union—withradically different positions and preferences are partyto the UNFCCC. The manifold issues pertaining toclimate change—from finance and accountability to

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THE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGEREGIME AND NEGOTIATIONS


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historical responsibility and compensation—areunited only by the levels of conflict and normativeuncertainty that surround them. Moreover, theUNFCCC process requires that all decisions bemade by consensus, meaning that each and everycountry has the power to block an agreement byvoicing its opposition in the final plenary session, ashappened in Copenhagen. Lessons have beenlearned from the failures of Copenhagen, and in theensuing process of relaunching the negotiationsextraordinary diplomatic efforts contributed to pavingthe way for an agreement in Paris, which was seenby many as absolutely imperative, given that thewindow of opportunity to take effective action againstclimate change will soon be closing.

The Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement constitutes a major milestonein international climate governance. It can be consid-ered a move from confrontational to cooperativeclimate governance and a beacon of hope for bothinternational climate action and effective multilater-alism. For the first time, almost every country in theworld committed to engaging in climate action. It is adeparture from previous climate agreements, mostnotably because of its inclusiveness and its focus onestablishing binding procedures rather than binding,quantified greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduc-tion targets per country. The Paris Agreement is moreinclusive than the Kyoto Protocol, which set bindingtargets only for the few developed countries that rati-fied the protocol. Whereas the protocol covered onlya handful of developed countries plus the EU andabout 12 percent of global GHG emissions duringits second commitment period, the NationallyDetermined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by 183countries prior to the Paris COP covered about 95percent of global GHG emissions.

The Paris Agreement constructs a framework andestablishes processes for directing, concerting, andratcheting up national climate policies and otheractors’ activities. The procedure of submittingsuccessively more ambitious NDCs in a five-yearcycle is binding. The precise content of the NDCs,however, is not prescribed. There is also no legal obli-gation to achieve the goals set by one’s NDC or astrong sanctioning mechanism in the case of non-

fulfillment of one’s promises, which could be seen asa potential weakness. The Paris Agreement relies onpeer pressure and other soft enforcement mecha-nisms for ensuring compliance with the self-set NDCgoals. It binds countries to a process, but leaves roomfor self-determination of the actual national policiesand level of ambition.

The Paris Agreement sets the collective goal oflimiting the global temperature increase to “well below2°C” while pursuing efforts to achieve no more thana 1.5°C global temperature increase.9 A second goalis the peaking of GHG emissions “as soon aspossible” and achieving net zero emissions in thesecond half of the twenty-first century,10 whichmeans that no GHG emissions will be added to theatmosphere. Potentially emitted GHGs either needto be captured or absorbed by carbon sinks.

Achieving these goals requires tremendous andprofound economic and behavioral transformationsglobally. While the basic framework of the interna-tional process and the collective goals have beenestablished by the Paris Agreement, the details stillneed to be negotiated and agreed upon in the comingyears. It also remains open to what extent and whenthe collective goals will be reached since the indi-vidual NDCs that have been submitted so far are esti-mated to lead to a global warming in the range of 2.7to 3.5°C.11 Donald Trump’s announcement to rollback U.S. federal climate policy adds additionaluncertainty. Additional and swift climate action seemsessential to achieve the Paris goals.

The Paris Agreement entered into force with unprece-dented speed on November 4, 2016—less than oneyear after its adoption. The ratification threshold offifty-five countries totaling 55 percent of the world’sGHG emissions was reached earlier than mostobservers expected and much faster than comparableagreements. The Kyoto Protocol only entered intoforce more than seven years after it was signed. TheParis Agreement entered into force with ninety-sevencountries, representing nearly 70 percent of globalGHG emissions having ratified. The swift ratificationby the United States and China spurred the ratifica-tion process in the EU so that entry into force couldbe achieved in record speed.


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Civil Aviation and Hydrofluorocarbons

While the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement are atthe core of global climate governance, there are anumber of other organizations and agreements thatdirectly pertain to climate change and contribute toachieving the goals set out in the UNFCCC realm.Two of them—aviation and hydrofluorocarbons—arebriefly included in this Policy Report since major deci-sions were made in those areas shortly after theadoption of the Paris Agreement and the U.S. andEU’s international outreach on those issues can beconsidered part of their broader climate diplomacyefforts.

The Paris Agreement does not include the aviation orthe maritime sectors. GHG emissions from thosesectors are addressed in separate internationalorganizations: the International Civil AviationOrganization (ICAO) and the International MaritimeOrganization (IMO), respectively. The ICAO adoptedthe first global deal to reduce the climate impact ofcivil aviation on October 12, 2016. The ICAOAssembly agreed to adopt a market-based measurethat foresees that all emission increases from 2020onward be offset. An initial phase until 2026 will,however, merely be voluntary.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Depletethe Ozone Layer also is part of the climate regimecomplex.12 It was agreed in 1987 together with theVienna Convention of the Protection of the OzoneLayer to phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) andother substances harmful to the ozone layer. TheMontreal Protocol generally is considered as one ofthe most effective international environmental agree-ments given that the ozone layer has since started torecover.13 On October 15, 2016, the Parties to theMontreal Protocol adopted the so-called KigaliAmendment, which aims at reducing hydrofluorocar-bons (HFCs), a powerful greenhouse gas. The KigaliAmendment was hailed as a major step towardkeeping global warming well below 2°C, the coregoal of the Paris Agreement. HFCs were introducedas substitutes for CFCs. While solving the problemof the ozone hole, the use of HFCs contributes toglobal warming, as their climate change potential isseveral times greater than that of carbon dioxide(CO2). For this reason, phasing down HFCs is

crucial for the climate regime.

This Policy Report’s analysis of EU and U.S. recentclimate diplomacy will include a few references tothese two landmark deals—the ICAO market-basedmeasure and the Kigali Amendment on HFCs—inaddition to its focus on the Paris Agreement negoti-ations. The following section discusses the conceptsof climate diplomacy and leadership in general termsbefore applying them to the cases of the EU,Germany, France, and the United States.

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High or even top-level political support and activeengagement, structural importance, diplomatic skilland capacity, and credibility are important ingredientsthat can make a jurisdiction a leader and an influentialactor in international climate diplomacy. A uniquecombination of their cognitive, political, structural, andeconomic resources determine a jurisdiction’s lead-ership potential, and as such no two leaders are thesame: each possesses distinct characteristics andstrengths. Harmonious interplay among such leaderscan greatly facilitate successful negotiation outputs.

Actors become successful leaders when theymanage to attract followers and sway negotiationsfrom the status quo in the direction of their moreambitious goal. A leader “guides or directs thebehavior of others toward a certain goal over a certainperiod of time.”14 Four types of (climate) leadershipcan be distinguished: Leadership through structuralpower derived from the leader’s position in the overallstructure and his/her indispensability for solving thegiven problem. Entrepreneurial leadership relates toactive and skillful bargaining and diplomatic outreach.Cognitive leadership involves the production andpromotion of new and ambitious ideas and solutionsfor the international process. Exemplary leadership isthe setting of an example by adopting ambitiousdomestic measures that compel others to follow.15

Generally, successful leaders exhibit traits of differentleadership types.

A discussion of leadership is relevant in the contextof diplomacy because the two concepts trade in thesame currency—leverage (structural leadership),negotiation skills (entrepreneurial leadership), newsolutions (cognitive leadership), and credibility (exem-plary leadership). Entrepreneurial leadership includesthe core activities that are generally understood as

diplomacy and as such will feature prominently in thisanalysis. The resources of the other styles of leader-ship, frequently in combination, corroborate andsupport successful diplomatic outreach.

Diplomacy is the outreach to other countries andactors with the aim to influence what is politicallypossible, including in negotiations. Negotiations aimto reconcile conflicting positions with the aim to reachan outcome that is agreeable to all parties.16

Diplomacy supports negotiations in two distinct ways:First, it involves the collection and assessment ofinformation not only about other countries’ interestsand positions, but also their constraints, capacities,and perception of the issues. Second, it strives toinfluence other countries’ national priorities, interests,and positions so as to move their negotiating posi-tions closer to one’s own position and to generatesupport for a specific negotiation output. Diplomacythus aims at identifying and influencing the “zone ofagreement” of specific negotiations.17

Diplomatic actors who strive to influence the positionsof others toward more ambitious outcomes of partic-ular negotiations can make use of the different typesof leadership: structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive,and exemplary.

Structural leadership describes an actor’s use ofhis/her dominant position within the respectivesystem to create incentives, costs, and benefits forothers, thereby manipulating their utility calculations.An actor’s position in the international system andthe size of its market, financial resources, or othertypes of power can allow it to impose sanctions andprovide incentives, pushing other actors into a certaincourse of behavior.18 Structural leadership can alsorelate to an actor’s indispensability and centrality in

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CLIMATE DIPLOMACY AND LEADERSHIP


solving a problem. For example, the United Statesand China’s large shares of global greenhouse gasemissions make them central actors in internationalclimate negotiations without whom a solution wouldnot sufficiently address the problem of climatechange.19

Entrepreneurial leadership is the active persuasionof others to engage in a certain practice or to recog-nize a specific policy problem. Entrepreneurial leadershave negotiating skills and are able to convince othersthrough flexibility, bargaining, and framing.20 Thisinvolves diplomatic outreach and bridge building.Entrepreneurial leaders are skilled in framing andreframing issues so as to offer benefits to each of thenegotiation parties.21 Strong (political) commitmentand a high level of engagement and initiative in theinternational negotiations process often characterizeentrepreneurial leaders.

Cognitive leadership describes the production ofideas, innovations, and concepts that shape theperspectives of others. A cognitive leader has ambi-tious proposals and ideas for the international nego-tiations and with regard to their outcome. S/heproduces and pursues ambitious goals for the inter-national process. Cognitive leaders provide possiblesolutions and scientific expertise on causes andeffects of given problems and solutions.22

Exemplary leadership is derived from domesticambition in contrast to cognitive leadership, whichrelates to an actor’s ambition in the external context.23

Exemplary leadership is the setting of a domesticexample that compels followers. Some authors labelit directional leadership.24 Pioneers adopt an idea,policy, practice, or product that has not existed beforein the respective jurisdiction or globally. They arecharacterized by their innovativeness and willingnessto depart from routinized, commonly acceptedbehavior and practices.25 An exemplary leaderprovides a model and experiences that inspirefollowers and demonstrate feasibility.26

While a cognitive leader is ambitious for the interna-tional negotiations, an exemplary leader is ambitiousin its domestic actions. Both leadership types can belinked in different ways. For example, a jurisdictioncan propose ambitious concepts and make aspiring

promises in international negotiations without fullycomplying with them yet, but rather making an inter-national agreement a condition for domestic meas-ures. Some jurisdictions can push for ambitiousinternational outputs to use them afterward asleverage to compel domestic change, against whichthere would otherwise be fierce opposition.

It seems unlikely that one type of leadership and oneactor can drive international negotiations toward amore ambitious output. It seems more likely that “thecontributions of more than one actor deployingdifferent, but complementary, forms of leadershiptowards a shared goal can lead to positive negotiatingoutcomes.”27 Leadership based on mutually rein-forcing types seems more likely to bear success.28

Entrepreneurial leadership can reinforce cognitiveand exemplary leadership by actively promoting theleader’s policies and ideas. Conversely, exemplaryleadership can create credibility, which supportsentrepreneurial leadership.29 Structural leadershipprovides a leader with leverage that places him/herin a strong negotiation position. Disregarding thedemands and negotiation position of a strong struc-tural leader seems difficult for other negotiating

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Leadership Type Main Characteristics

Structural leadership

Structural power derived froma central and strong position inthe system: economic powerand share of global GHG emis-sions, etc.

Entrepreneurial leadershipActive persuasion of others:diplomatic and negotiationskills

Cognitive leadership

Ideas and innovations thatshape the perspectives ofothers: high ambitions for theinternational negotiations

Exemplary leadership

Domestic policies and activi-ties serve as examples forothers: high ambitions fordomestic policy

Table 1: The Four Different Leadership Types


parties.

Each country’s leadership potential depends on itsspecific characteristics and political resolve.Structural power often is a prerogative of largeeconomies and, in the case of climate negotiations,emitters of a large share of global GHGs. A largeemitter can derive power and influence from its struc-tural position as one of the main contributors toclimate change without whom an agreement wouldbe meaningless or ineffective. Entrepreneurial lead-ership requires diplomatic and bargaining skills, thepolitical will to deploy them, and capacities such asthe ability to collect information about other countries’positions, a network of embassies and diplomats, andskilled negotiators. For cognitive and exemplary lead-ership, the political will and capacity to adopt ambi-tious (international and/or domestic) climate policy isan important factor.

Certain prerequisites can be identified for successfulclimate diplomacy and leadership, including high-levelpolitical will and support, credibility, trust, and coali-tion building. Climate change is a complex issueinvolving trade-offs between sectors includingeconomic development, energy, health, and agricul-ture. It involves a highly heterogeneous and conflictingset of national interests and negotiating positions.Political will and support at a high political level aretherefore necessary to attain a perspective broadenough to straddle these divergent sectors, to makethe necessary trade-offs, and to bring enough cloutto influence other countries’ way of thinking.30

Credibility is important for successfully conductingnegotiations. Actions and promises have to beconsidered as sincere. Exemplary leadership can playan important role in this regard. Goals need to bepresented as a joint purpose rather than one party’sself-interest, which requires framing skills.31 Climatediplomacy can help generate credibility throughoutreach, socialization, and concrete cooperationcommitments.

Trust is important for negotiations. If negotiations part-ners have doubts and are suspicious about the state-ments and positions put forward by others, thennegotiations seem more likely to produce suboptimaloutcomes.32 Entrepreneurial leadership corroborated

by exemplary leadership can generate trust andreduce uncertainty about another negotiationpartner’s motives and positions.

Building coalitions and coordinating among actorswith similar or compatible goals can amplify the voiceand influence of a leader.33 Leaders can convinceother actors who would not act on their own to join acoalition, which can amplify their activities and enablethe achieving of a joint goal that none of the individualactors would have been able to achieve alone.

Climate diplomacy and leadership spans beyond therealm of the UNFCCC with governments discussingclimate change in a range of other forums as diverseas the G7, the G20, the Major Economies Forum, theUN Security Council, and the International CivilAviation Organization (ICAO). The linking of discus-sions and negotiations across venues and topics canbe an important part of a diplomacy strategy.

The aforementioned prerequisites for effective climatediplomacy and leadership are important individually,but it is their combination that ultimately transformseach jurisdiction with leadership ambition into aunique kind of leader. No jurisdiction has the exactsame characteristics and resources. This leads to therise and decline of different types of leaders in theinternational climate negotiations. The interactionamong those leaders can be mutually supportive andcomplementary but can also result in some clashesand competition. The following sections will analyzethe unique features of the EU, Germany, France, andthe U.S. as leaders in recent climate negotiations.

Focus of the Analysis and Methodology

This Policy Report analyzes the extent to which theEU and the United States displayed leadership in theinternational climate negotiations through their climatediplomacy. It compares the types of leadership thatboth actors employed and assesses the degree towhich Europe and the United States cooperated andinteracted in their climate diplomacy. The analyticalfocus is on the negotiations leading up to the adop-tion of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change inDecember 2015. Reference is made to the monthsleading to the Paris Agreement’s rapid entry into forceon November 4, 2016 and to closely related negoti-

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ations in the context of the International Civil AviationOrganization and the Montreal Protocol.

While the European Union speaks and acts on behalfof its member states in the UNFCCC negotiationsand a significant share of European climate policy ismade at the EU level, member states are not inactive.Especially Germany, France, and the United Kingdom(UK) but also some smaller member states have beenvery active in engaging in their own climate diplomacyefforts, supporting and strengthening EU efforts in anexplicit or implicit manner. For this reason, this PolicyReport not only examines the European Union level,but also includes brief discussions of Germany andFrance’s contributions to European climate diplo-macy.

The empirical analysis is based on multiple datasources and methods. Information was collectedthrough desk research, using primary and secondaryinformation sources, interviews with a number ofEuropean and U.S. experts who were involved in theUNFCCC climate negotiations, and through ananalysis of Twitter feeds of a selected number of high-level political actors.

Twitter feeds are an illustrative source of informationsince they reflect the author’s priorities and opinions.Actors generally tweet about issues and achieve-ments to which they attach great importance andwhich they wish to communicate to a broader audi-ence. The subjectivity of Twitter permits a rare glimpseinto the minds of decision-makers to see on whatexactly they place value. For these reasons, thetweets and re-tweets of key high-level politicians havebeen analyzed to gauge the level and intensity of polit-ical support for climate diplomacy in the UnitedStates, the EU, and France. Germany could not beincluded in this analysis since its chancellor andforeign and environment ministers are not active onTwitter. Reports on their trips abroad in which climatechange was mentioned were analyzed as an alterna-tive source of information. As with Twitter, the reportson those politicians or ministries’ websites alsoincludes the subjective element of reflecting a degreeof importance attached to an issue. The analysis ofTwitter feeds and for Germany reports on trips abroadallow an approximation of the political importance andbacking that climate diplomacy receives in a certain

jurisdiction.

Additionally, Twitter facilitates an analysis of diplo-matic activity that might otherwise be difficult toaccess: where actors travelled, who they met, andwhich key policy areas were discussed. Twitter feedswere therefore used to track the bilateral and multi-lateral meetings that high-level political actorsattended. As with the tweets, only those meetingsthat explicitly referenced climate change wereincluded in this analysis. Since EU ClimateCommissioner Miguel Arias Cañete’s role is double-hatted, covering both climate action and energy,meetings that pertained to his energy portfolio (forexample, energy security, energy cooperation, andinvestment in non-renewables) were excluded fromthis analysis.

In order to map the countries with which the UnitedStates and the EU are engaging in climate diplomacyvia Twitter, a record was kept each time the chiefclimate diplomats for the U.S. and the EU, John Kerryand Miguel Arias Cañete, either: a) tweeted a repre-sentative of another country on an explicitly climate-related topic; b) re-tweeted an explicitlyclimate-related post from a representative of anothercountry; or c) posted an explicitly climate-relatedtweet referring to another country or a representativefrom another country. In the case of Cañete’s feed,only tweets referring to (representatives of) non-EUmember states were included in the analysis. As withCañete’s overseas visits, tweets pertaining to hisenergy portfolio were excluded from the analysis. Thedata was used to create a visual representation ofthe most frequently tweeted countries on climate-related matters for both actors.

There are two significant limitations to using Twitteras a research tool. First, Twitter is not a comprehen-sive source and the compiled data is not intended tobe an exhaustive list of actors’ activity on climatediplomacy. There are doubtless many meetings andevents on which no tweet exists, and of the meetingsthat were made public on Twitter, only those thatexplicitly included a reference to climate change arepart of the analysis. Consequently, the figurespresented in this Policy Report can be consideredconservative, yet reliable.

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The second limitation is Twitter’s restriction on acces-sibility: only the most recent 2,300 tweets are visiblein a user’s feed. The result of this is that the analysiscovers different timescales depending on each user’slevel of activity: the more prolific a tweeter, the lessfar back in time does the analysis extend. This explainswhy the activity of Laurent Fabius, who stoppedtweeting after leaving his position in the Ministry ofForeign Affairs to join the Constitutional Council inearly 2016, extends back into 2014, whereas theactivity of John Kerry, who was highly activethroughout 2016, cuts off mid-2015. Nonetheless,the analysis of high-level politicians’ tweets comple-ments the empirical analysis well by corroboratingand substantiating the findings of the desk researchand expert interviews.

To triangulate the Twitter analysis, the diplomacy andleadership efforts of the EU, Germany, France, andthe United States have been traced based on theanalysis of secondary and primary sources and expertinterviews. The interviews were conducted in thecourse of 2016 mainly in Washington, DC, andBrussels. Given the request for anonymity by someinterviewees, names and references cannot beincluded in this Policy Report. The interviews wereused as underlying verification to ensure the accuracyof the information and analysis presented in thefollowing sections, which will first discuss the EU,German, French, and U.S. climate diplomacy effortsand leadership individually before turning to theanalysis of European-U.S. interaction and collabora-tion.

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European Union Climate Diplomacy andLeadership

In the negotiations that culminated in the adoptionof the Paris Agreement, the EU deployed a mix ofentrepreneurial, cognitive, and exemplary leadershipsupported by its relatively favorable structural posi-tion and resources. While in the early years of inter-national climate negotiations the EU focused oncognitive leadership, advocating ambitious interna-tional outputs, it increasingly added strongelements of exemplary and entrepreneurial leader-ship elements to its set of activities by adoptingrelatively ambitious EU-level climate policy andintensifying climate outreach to non-EU countries.One of the highlights of its entrepreneurial leader-ship was the EU’s strong involvement and engage-ment with most vulnerable countries and in theso-called High Ambition Coalition.

The EU has held climate leadership ambitions for anumber of decades. In the 1990s and early 2000s, itfocused on submissions to the UNFCCC negotia-tions themselves and pursued a strategy of cognitiveleadership. Progressively, it intensified its exemplaryleadership through ambitious domestic policy. In thecourse of time it has shifted its strategy toward amore comprehensive climate diplomacy that empha-sizes coalition building, bilateral outreach, and medi-ation34 and combines the different leadership types.

One of its major achievements and contribution tothe process that made the Paris Agreement possiblewas the EU’s strong engagement with developingand most vulnerable countries that manifested itselfmost prominently through the High AmbitionCoalition. This alliance added to the politicalmomentum that had been building throughout 2015and pushed the Paris Agreement toward the more

ambitious end of what was politically possible. TheHigh Ambition Coalition was one of the main driversbehind the inclusion of the long-term aspirationaltemperature goal of 1.5°C in the agreement.

The EU is a special entity in the international climateand many other negotiations since it is a so-calledregional integration organization rather than a nationstate. It comprises twenty-eight member states, all ofwhich have their own diplomatic networks anddomestic climate policies and interests. Climate poli-cymaking is a shared competence between themember states and the EU, with the most importantparameters being agreed jointly at the EU level. Forexample, targets for GHG emission reduction, renew-able energy shares, and energy efficiency improve-ment have been set jointly by the leaders of allmember states and constitute EU-wide bindingtargets. A number of key policies such as theEmissions Trading System (ETS) have been adoptedat the level of the EU.

Given the relatively large extent to which climatepolicy is made jointly at the EU level, the externalrepresentation in the UNFCCC negotiations is alsoconducted by the EU as an entity rather than by itsmember states individually. The Presidency of theCouncil of Ministers and the European Commission—mainly represented by its Directorate General forClimate Action (DG Climate Action)—together repre-sent the EU in the negotiations. Climate diplomacy isconducted by the European External Action Service(EEAS), the European Commission, and the EUmember states individually or jointly.

The EU can potentially mobilize more embassies anddiplomats to achieve its climate diplomacy objectivesand has a bigger team at international negotiations

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EUROPEAN CLIMATE DIPLOMACY ANDLEADERSHIP


18


than any individual country, since the EU capacity isthe sum of all twenty-eight member states’ individualdiplomatic networks and negotiation teams, plus theEU-level system of so-called Delegations in a largenumber of non-EU countries and the internationalnegotiations team staffed by DG Climate Action andthe Council of Ministers. Yet, the EU is not ascoherent an actor as a single country. In sheernumbers, it has a far greater capacity than individualnation states have, but this advantage is partiallyoffset by its complex structure and the challengesinvolved in internal coordination.

The Presidency of the Council of Ministers changesevery six months but DG Climate Action, the EEAS,and the Green Diplomacy Network provide for conti-nuity. In the EU’s negotiation team, a system of leadnegotiators and issue leaders, who can beCommission or member state experts, ensures conti-nuity. Not officially but in practice, DG Climate Actionhas taken over a large part of the EU’s coordinationand execution of the climate negotiations. Yet, theCouncil of Ministers and its Working Party onInternational Environmental Issues (WPIEI) also arehighly involved. The Green Diplomacy Network, whichconsists of diplomats from the EU member stateforeign ministries, contributes to the EU’s climatediplomacy strategy. The EEAS has some diplomaticand strategic expertise in general, while DG ClimateAction has expert knowledge on climate change.Wedding these two areas of expertise seems bene-ficial if conducted in an efficient non-rivaling manner.When the EU level takes care of the overall strategy,different member states can specialize in certainissues.

The EU has long held leadership ambition in interna-tional climate negotiations and consistently main-tained ambitious positions in the different negotiationrounds, engaging in cognitive leadership. Yet, in the1990s and 2000s it was criticized for spending moretime on internal coordination and negotiations thanengagement with and outreach to non-EU actors.35

While initially engaging more in cognitive leadershipwith ambitious international positions, the EU grewinto an exemplary leader, adopting relatively ambitiousdomestic policy. In 2007, the European Counciladopted the target to reduce its GHG emissions by

20 percent by 2020 and conditionally by 30 percentif other major emitters make comparable commit-ments. This was done in the context of the negotia-tions for a successor agreement to the KyotoProtocol, which was planned to be adopted at theCopenhagen COP in 2009.36 The EU’s strategy wasto lead the way by adopting an ambitious domesticclimate policy but, at the time, no one else was willingto follow,37 which led to the realization that leading isnot useful if no one is interested in following. Thisexperience emphasized the need for entrepreneurialleadership to complement the EU’s cognitive andexemplary leadership efforts. Consequently, the EU’snegotiation strategy has since included more coalitionbuilding, mediation, and bilateral cooperation.38

Entrepreneurial leadership through building coalitionswith developing and most vulnerable countries wasan important feature of the EU’s climate diplomacy inthe run-up to the 2015 Paris COP. In particular, theHigh Ambition Coalition and the Cartagena Dialoguefor Progressive Action constitute the main outcomesof these efforts. Least developed countries (LDCs)and small island developing states (SIDS) had alreadypushed for an ambitious international climate agree-ment and a 1.5°C target at the Cancún COP in 2010.Until the Paris COP, however, the 1.5°C target hadnot found much traction with developed countries.39

Taking their positions seriously and incorporating theLDCs and SIDS into the process by making theirvoices heard contributed to the positive and encour-aging spirit at the Paris meeting.

The Cartagena Dialogue for Progressive Action is aninformal negotiating group that was created at the2009 Copenhagen COP on the initiative of the UKand Australia. It comprises about thirty nations. TheEU and some of its member states, includingGermany, worked together with developed and devel-oping countries in the pursuit of an ambitious,comprehensive, and legally-binding regime in theUNFCCC.40 The dialogue played a role behind thescenes at the Cancún and Durban COPs andcontributed to avoiding a bifurcation between devel-oped and developing countries in the negotiations.

At the Paris COP, the High Ambition Coalition playedan important role. Initiated in spring 2015 by theMarshall Islands foreign minister Tony de Brum and

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in close interaction with and support by the EU, thiscoalition included a range of developed and devel-oping countries that were united in their high ambitionfor the climate negotiations,41 a coalition of cognitiveleaders. The core demands of the coalition includeda temperature target of 1.5°C instead of 2°C and alegally-binding agreement. The High AmbitionCoalition gained traction during the Paris COP, whenincreasingly other countries joined, including theUnited States. Toward the end of the Paris meeting,it comprised more than 100 countries42 and provedto be instrumental in fostering agreement. When theEU convinced Brazil to join the High AmbitionCoalition, it marked a schism in the influential BASICgroup—representing Brazil, South Africa, India, andChina—changing the negotiation dynamics.

While the course of events in Paris and the tremen-dous success of the High Ambition Coalition couldnot have been anticipated, this type of outreach andentrepreneurial leadership was explicitly part of theEU’s climate diplomacy action plan. In their 2013reflection paper EU Climate Diplomacy for 2015 andBeyond, the EEAS and the European Commissionstate that a challenge for the climate negotiations isthe successful completion of the negotiating process“through intensive outreach activities […], striving foran ambitious coalition and the necessary politicalmomentum.”43

The EU also cooperated with China and otheremerging economies on a bilateral basis. With China,the EU maintains a regular dialogue mechanism atthe ministerial, senior official, and policy officer level.The 2015 EU-China Summit resulted in a joint state-ment in which both jurisdictions agreed to step uptheir cooperation on climate change. The EU andChina cooperate closely on various climate policiessuch as GHG emissions trading44 and sustainablecities. Yet, this engagement did not bear the sameweight for the international climate negotiationdynamics as the U.S.-China joint announcements,which are described below. They can, however, beconsidered as a long-term engagement thatcontributes to the bottom-up process of the ParisAgreement architecture.

With regard to international climate finance, whichhas been an important demand from developing

countries in the course of the climate negotiations,the EU has shown some noteworthy commitment thatpartially derived from structural power, making use ofthe EU’s financial resources. The EU has committedto spending 20 percent of its overall budget onclimate-related activities. From 2010 to 2012, the EUand its member states provided €7.2 billion forpriority areas of climate adaptation, REDD+(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and ForestDegradation), mitigation, and technology coopera-tion.45 The Commission established the GlobalClimate Change Alliance (GCCA), which providespolicy and financial assistance in the areas of climatechange to developing countries. The EU’s outreachand financial support to developing countries is thusa central feature of its external climate engagement.

The rapid ratification of the Paris Agreement, lessthan a year after its adoption, was a challenge for theEU given its complicated internal ratification process.Nonetheless, in the light of fast moves by the UnitedStates and China, among other countries, the EU andits member states demonstrated flexibility and politicalwill to expedite the ratification process and ensurethe extraordinarily speedy entry into force of the ParisAgreement.

In the context of the negotiations in the InternationalCivil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the EU teamedup with Mexico, the Marshall Islands, and some othercountries in a slimmed-down High Ambition Coalitionto push for a global deal on a global carbon marketfor the aviation sector. These entrepreneurial leader-ship efforts were, however, somewhat more cumber-some than in Paris the year before.

With regard to the Kigali Amendment to the MontrealProtocol, the EU engaged in exemplary leadership byadopting domestic legislation to phase down fluori-nated gases before the international agreement wasreached. It set an EU-wide cap on HFCs in 2015and started reducing consumption as from 2016.

The European Union is an active diplomatic actor ininternational climate negotiations. It has continuouslyevolved and improved its performance by furtherdeveloping and deploying a mutually reinforcing mixof different leadership types and activities.

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German Climate Diplomacy andLeadership

As part of the EU but also independently, Germanyengages in climate diplomacy and deploys a mix ofdifferent types of leadership efforts. It has been oneof the key actors in EU climate diplomacy and itsactivities generally support and reinforce EU efforts.

Germany engaged in entrepreneurial leadershipthough multilateral and bilateral outreach. The Brazil-German joint statement on climate change of August20, 2015, which was signed by Chancellor AngelaMerkel and President Dilma Rousseff, is an exampleof successful entrepreneurial leadership through bilat-eral outreach. Since 2010, Germany has hosted theannual Petersberg Climate Dialogues, which aim atproviding an opportunity for informal exchange ofclimate policy experiences among a number of coun-tries, thus demonstrating entrepreneurial leadershipthrough multilateral outreach. It was initiated after theCopenhagen COP to provide fresh impetus for theinternational climate negotiations and is co-hostedby the country that holds the COP presidency in theparticular year. In the 2016 edition, thirty-five coun-tries participated, including the United States. Suchbilateral and multilateral activities complemented theEU efforts and added value through Germany’s struc-tural position in the international system as a majortrading partner of a number of countries.

Germany also plays a key role in venues other thanthe UNFCCC, such as the G7, acting as entrepre-neurial leader. When Germany hosted and presidedover the 2015 G7 meeting in Elmau, it pushed for ajoint statement that called for the goal of decar-bonizing the global economy during the twenty-firstcentury. This commitment implies the phasing out offossil fuels by 2100 by seven major economies.Moreover, the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting held inLübeck during Germany’s 2015 G7 presidencyestablished a working group on the foreign policyrisks of climate change. In December 2016, Germanyannounced its plans to make climate change one ofthe headline issues of the 2017 G20 summit inHamburg, which it will preside.

Germany has an ambitious domestic climate andenergy plan and aims to reduce its greenhouse gas

emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050, while at thesame time to cease nuclear power generation. Yet,this policy ambition faces tough challenges such asthe politics and social implications of abolishing coalfrom Germany’s energy mix. This controversy andchallenge is exemplified by German Minister forEconomic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel’sannouncement in October 2016 that coal wouldremain part of Germany’s energy mix until at least2040. Exemplary leadership is part of Germany’sactor characteristics in international climate negotia-tions but faces some tough challenges to maintainand live up to its high level of domestic ambition.

Germany also used its extensive network ofembassies for climate outreach through interactionwith non-EU governments as well as public diplomacyefforts in various countries, engaging in entrepre-neurial leadership. The German Corporation forInternational Cooperation (GIZ) is an active providerof climate-related development finance and capacity-building.

French Climate Diplomacy and Leadership

France acted as an extraordinarily active entrepre-neurial leader in the period leading up to the 2015COP that took place in Paris. It also engaged incognitive leadership by setting high ambitions for theinternational negotiations. France generally engagesin climate diplomacy and leadership as part of theEU, similar to Germany. In the run-up to the 2015COP, however, it played a different role, that of inter-national mediator, since it held the presidency of theUNFCCC negotiations during that period, a rolewhich requires denationalization. This means thatFrance did not participate in the EU’s diplomaticoutreach as it probably otherwise would have done.

Given the high levels of distrust between the globalNorth and South in UNFCCC negotiations46 and thenotable failures of both the 2000 COP in The Hagueand the 2009 COP in Copenhagen under Europeanpresidencies, France took great care to distance itselffrom the European Union and present itself as animpartial facilitator. Nonetheless, it was understoodand broadly accepted that the French presidency wascommitted to securing an ambitious deal and it under-took various activities to prepare the ground, find

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consensus, and raise the level of ambition byengaging in cognitive and entrepreneurial leadership.

The French presidency invested a tremendousamount of financial, time, and human resources in itsclimate diplomacy in the year leading up to COP21.A special team was created from foreign affairs andenvironment officials, housed in the same buildingand under the authority of Laurence Tubiana, whosetitle Special Ambassador for Climate Change alsostraddled the two areas. With its diplomatic networkoperating in unison, the French presidency was ableto adopt a comprehensive approach in the yearleading up to the summit, addressing issues andpushing the climate change agenda from multipleangles and from every corner of the globe in a mannerthat could only have been replicated by a handful ofcountries with comparable diplomatic resources.

For over a year before the COP, the team engaged inextensive diplomatic outreach seemingly on a levelnever before seen from a COP presidency to buildtrust and bridge the North-South divide. Experts inter-viewed agree that this long process of listening tocountries not only generated goodwill and facilitateda smooth process free from the procedural objectionsand blockages typical of UNFCCC negotiations, butalso helped France to construct a picture of how anambitious final agreement could look.

The experience and international reputation of theCOP president has been recognized as contributingto successful outcomes in UNFCCC negotiations47

and the appointment of the highly experienced andrespected Fabius was important for demonstratingpolitical will. Fabius’ personal and political authoritywas complemented by Tubiana’s credibility as achampion of the cause and familiarity with the actorsinvolved in international climate negotiations from acareer spanning academia, NGOs, and the UN in adivision of labor similar to that which we see betweenthe U.S. and the EU (see below).

The French undertook a number of specific activitiesthat helped them to achieve an ambitious deal,engaging in extensive entrepreneurial leadershipactivities. One such activity was the creation of theso-called Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) inconjunction with the Peruvian presidency of the 2008

COP. The LPAA was a platform devised by the twopresidencies to engage non-state and sub-nationalactors in the implementation of climate action. Eventswere held in the run-up to the summit and in parallelas a second conference to the intergovernmentalconference. The commitments and agreements thatcame out of the LPAA formed part of the final dealand allowed countries to expand the number ofoptions informally available and facilitate concessiontrading. Moreover, experts interviewed consistentlyidentified the significance of the LPAA in contributingto the momentum behind Paris and putting pressureon governments to agree on an ambitious deal. TheLPAA has been renamed into the Global ClimateAction Agenda, and Laurence Tubiana is one of itstwo global climate champions.

Another notable activity was the release of a numberof bilateral declarations in the run-up to the COP.French President François Hollande and ChinesePresident Xi Jinping issued a bilateral declaration onclimate change in November 201548 and a sectionon climate was also included in a 2015 France-Indiadeclaration.49 This strategy was employed to bringdifficult players into the fold and to secure languagefrom key emitters from which it would be difficult tolater retreat. Entrepreneurial leadership runs throughmany of the French presidency’s activities.

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The United States re-engaged in international climatenegotiations with the beginning of President BarackObama’s term in office and employed a mix ofdifferent leadership types. It used its structural lead-ership to influence the wording in particular withregard to the legal force of the Paris Agreement. Itsactive use of entrepreneurial leadership, most notablyby reaching out to emerging economies and particu-larly to China, made a major contribution to the inter-national negotiation process. Considerations aboutavoiding the obligation to request ratification by theUnited States Senate might have curtailed U.S.cognitive leadership. During President Obama’ssecond term of office, his administration adoptednumerous regulations that contributed to a certaindegree of exemplary leadership.

U.S. involvement in the international climate negotia-tions is marked by phases of active leadership alter-nating with phases of abstention. With Obama’spresidency, the United States re-emerged as anactive and constructive party to the internationalclimate negotiations after a phase of non-involvementunder President George W. Bush. At the 2009Copenhagen COP, the U.S. was a major actor andPresident Obama assumed entrepreneurial leader-ship by brokering a deal with a number of emergingeconomies—the so-called Copenhagen Accord—which was initially outside of the UNFCCC frameworkand only contained voluntary pledges. The Accordwas merely noted after a number of parties raisedobjections during the final plenary session of theCopenhagen COP. The EU was sidelined throughoutthis process. The Copenhagen Accord can beconsidered an important step for international climatenegotiations since it marked China’s first ever (volun-tary) commitments and the first U.S. internationalclimate commitments since the conclusion of the

Kyoto Protocol.

Starting in 2011, the United States became moreactively involved in the UNFCCC negotiations andsince 2013—when President Obama presented acomprehensive climate action plan—ramped up itsefforts on domestic climate policy and internationalclimate diplomacy. One of the country’s majorachievements and contributions to the process thatmade the Paris Agreement possible was its strongengagement with China. The United Statessucceeded in preparing a number of joint statementsin which China committed to climate targets andannounced domestic climate policy. Bringing Chinainto the core of the process and China’s agreementto abandon the strict bifurcation between developedand developing countries was a watershed momentof the negotiation process and in part thanks to U.S.entrepreneurial leadership.

For the United States there were two key elements inthe negotiations that represented red lines it was notwilling to cross. The first relates to the definition ofthe concept of Common But DifferentiatedResponsibilities and Related Capabilities (CBDR-RC). The United States could not allow China andother emerging economies to explicitly have fewerresponsibilities than itself. This competitivenessconcern had already been part of the U.S. politicalrhetoric during the negotiations of the 1997 KyotoProtocol and remained important for domestic poli-tics.

The second key element of the U.S. position was thelegal nature of the Paris Agreement. The U.S. govern-ment wanted to avoid at all costs the need for Senateratification since the Republican Senate majority hadmade clear that it would not ratify an international

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U.S. CLIMATE DIPLOMACY AND LEADERSHIP


treaty that would bind the United States to GHGemission reduction targets. For this reason, the UnitedStates meticulously pursued the drafting of an inter-national climate agreement that introduced a bindingprocedure but no concrete mitigation or financingcommitments.

The United States engaged in entrepreneurial lead-ership through bilateral diplomacy and coalitionbuilding. Especially its outreach to China was essen-tial to the negotiations leading to the adoption of theParis Agreement. Undoubtedly, a U.S.-China agree-ment in November 2014 was a watershed momentthat generated momentum for achieving the ParisAgreement.50 In 2013, China still defended the clear-cut distinction between developed and developingcountries as enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol andopposed attempts to re-categorize countries. In2014, it softened its stance to insist on differentiationon the level of stringency of the commitments but nolonger on a differentiation at the level of legal appli-cability of the Paris Agreement. This brought theAmerican and Chinese positions closer together sothat an overlap of their respective positions emerged.

On November 12, 2014, President Barack Obamaand Chinese President Xi Jinping announced aclimate agreement that stunned many climateobservers. It was the result of about nine months ofsecret interaction and diplomacy between the twocountries and constituted the first of a series of jointstatements. U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern andChinese lead climate negotiator Xie Zhenhuaengaged in intense interaction. U.S.-China relationsin general are not easy and it required presidentialinvolvement by Barack Obama to initiate and supportdiscussions between the two on a climate agreement.Personal meetings between Presidents Obama andXi were important parts of the diplomatic outreach,which were carefully organized by White Houseclimate counselor John Podesta and U.S. climateenvoy Todd Stern.51

The United States has become a central actor in theUNFCCC negotiations. This is partially grounded inits structural power as the largest economy and thesecond largest emitter of GHG emissions. It alsosucceeded in generating some trust and credibilitythrough its domestic climate policy. Especially in his

second term, President Obama became increasinglyactive on climate policy through the adoption ofEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA)-level regu-lation.

Before the Copenhagen COP, the United StatesCongress had tried to adopt a national climate law,which failed in the Senate. Obama had to travel tothe climate negotiations in Denmark without beingable to demonstrate exemplary leadership. Later,leading up to the Paris COP, the situation hadchanged. The Obama administration had announceda number of EPA regulations, including standards fornew and existing power plants, standards forpassenger and commercial vehicles, and standardsto reduce methane emissions. He also introduced theClean Power Plan, aiming at reducing CO2 emissionsfrom the power sector by 30 percent by 2030,compared to 2005 levels, and established individualreduction targets for each U.S. state. The UnitedStates could credibly claim to walk the talk of relativelyambitious climate policy and added to its leadershipmix a certain degree of exemplary leadership.

The United States also engages with developingcountries and funds climate-related developmentcooperation projects through the Enhancing Capacityfor Low Emission Development Strategies (EC-LEDS) and other programs. The EC-LEDS estab-lished partnerships with twenty-six middle-incomecountries ranging from Mexico to Indonesia. Whilethis engagement made a contribution to engagingwith developing countries on climate action, it did notresult in the same mobilization and negotiationdynamics seen in the High Ambition Coalition (inwhich the EU was heavily involved). However, it didsupport a number of countries in their preparationsfor the Paris COP and climate action in general.

The United States also engaged in entrepreneurialleadership in the context of the Montreal Protocol andpushed hard for the Kigali Amendment, which wasadopted in October 2016. Secretary of State Kerryattended negotiations personally and reached out tokey opposing countries such as India. In the case ofthe Kigali Amendment, however, the question ofwhether the U.S. Senate must ratify it has not beenentirely clarified. A failure to do so, which seems aviable option given Donald Trump’s election, could

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have serious repercussions dissuading developingcountries from joining the amendment. Yet, since U.S.companies could benefit from replacing HFCbecause they produce alternatives, an economicinterest argument could play a role in the debate.

Also in the ICAO negotiations, the U.S. engagedthrough active entrepreneurial leadership and held aposition of one of the structural powers. Despitesome transatlantic clashes in the course of the nego-tiations, a deal was reached in 2016.

Overall, the United States’ entrepreneurial leadership,corroborated by its structural position and flanked bya degree of cognitive and exemplary leadership, hasmarked the U.S. role in the international climate nego-tiations during the Obama presidency, therebymaking a major contribution to the process and thesuccess of the 2015 Paris COP.

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Comparing European and U.S. ClimateDiplomacy and Leadership

The analysis of key politicians’ Twitter messages thatis presented in this section confirms the above eval-uation that the EU engaged in a somewhat differenttype of outreach than the United States. The analysisalso demonstrates that climate diplomacy isconducted at different political levels. In the U.S.,climate diplomacy has moved up to the presidentiallevel, while at the EU level the Climate Commissioneris a central figure.

A count of the climate-related tweets of the heads ofstate and foreign ministers of the U.S. and France aswell as the President of the European Commissionand the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairsand Security Policy reveals stark differences withregard to their frequency (see Table 2 below), indi-cating that the prioritization of climate diplomacy atthe highest political level differs among the three juris-dictions. For Germany, no tweets are available sincethe relevant politicians do not maintain a Twitteraccount.

The Tweets of President Barack Obama andSecretary of State John Kerry, as shown in Table 2,indicate that climate change has been a U.S. priorityat the highest political level, as they have togetherposted a total of 145 climate-related items over thecourse of 20 months. In comparison, the EU’s totalof 20 posts over the same time period seems verylow, although this should not necessarily be seen asa lack of political will. The climate-related posts ofthe EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy,Miguel Arias Cañete, far outnumber those of Obamaand Kerry combined. Rather, the information suggests

that climate diplomacy has received more attentionat a higher political level in the U.S. than in the EUand is a higher-priority foreign policy objective. At theEU level, climate diplomacy is very much driven atthe level of the policy resort, namely DG ClimateAction.

Given that the French foreign minister, LaurentFabius, was the President of the 2015 COP, thevolume of his climate-related posts is unsurprising.What is perhaps surprising is the lack of (Twitter)activity on the part of French president FrançoisHollande, which serves to emphasize by contrast thepersonal interest taken by President Obama insupporting climate mitigation and making climatechange a part of his legacy.

The analysis of the reports on German chancellorAngela Merkel’s trips to non-EU countries that canbe found on the chancellery website reveals that sheaddressed climate change in conversations withemerging economies, Japan, and the Vatican (seeTable 3 below). China stands out with two sets ofdiscussions about climate change between theGerman chancellor and the Chinese governmentwithin less than a year. Outreach to China and other

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EU-U.S. COOPERATION AND DIVISION OFLABOR

Table 2: Number of climate-related tweets andre-tweets at top political level

U.S. EU France

Head of State /European

CommissionPresident

tweets 26 3 8

re-tweets 3 12 0

total 29 15 8

Foreign Minister / EUHigh Representative

tweets 123 3 142

re-tweets 15 2 159

total 128 5 301


emerging economies such as Brazil and India is thusnot a prerogative of U.S. leaders.

Table 4 details John Kerry’s climate outreach activityas published on his Twitter feed. It shows a high levelof engagement in climate diplomacy and a sustainedcommitment after the adoption of the ParisAgreement. U.S. entrepreneurial leadership also

played a role in the ratification and implementation ofthe Paris Agreement. Secretary Kerry has been activepromoting the U.S.’ climate goals on the multilateralstage, and also bilaterally. The most frequently visitedcountries are France, China, India, and Norway.

The word cloud below shows which countriesfeatured in Kerry’s tweets on climate-related matters(see Figure 2). The larger the country’s nameappears, the greater the volume of tweets linked to it.The countries are not particularly numerous and thevolume of tweets was small compared to that of theEU. France is the most-tweeted country, which isunsurprising given that it was the host of COP21.After France, China and India featured in the greatestnumber of tweets, which corroborates the finding thatthe U.S. engaged in extensive and intensive diplo-matic outreach to emerging economies and in partic-ular to China but also significantly to India.

Table 5 shows EU Climate Commissioner Cañete’sclimate outreach activity as published on his Twitteraccount. Since Table 2 demonstrated that climatediplomacy involves different actors at different politicallevels in the U.S. and the EU, the analysis of climate-related outreach to non-EU countries focuses onCañete rather than Kerry’s counterpart in the EU, HighRepresentative Federica Mogherini. She engages intraditional foreign policy and diplomacy, but externalclimate policy and diplomacy falls to theCommissioner for Climate Action.

Commissioner Cañete is not as active as SecretaryKerry at the bilateral level, but he is extremely activeat the multilateral level. An analysis of the word cloudbelow offers a possible explanation for this difference(see Figure 3).

The word cloud shows engagement with a muchbroader range of countries. Whereas the contributionof the U.S. to the success of the UNFCCC negotia-tions is characterized by diplomatic rapprochementwith a limited number of key GHG emitters, the EU’scontribution involved coalition building with a largenumber of developing and small island states.Bilateral consultations were therefore more importantfor the U.S.’ strategy than for the EU’s. Bilateral visitsfor a coalition of such size and complexity as the HighAmbition Coalition would pose unreasonable logis-

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Figure 3: Word cloud of the most-frequentlymentioned countries in

Miguel Arias Cañete’s tweets

Figure 2: Word cloud of the most-frequentlymentioned countries in John Kerry’s tweets

Figure 1: Exemplary tweet by Secretary of StateJohn Kerry


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Angela Merkel

Bilateral Meetings Multilateral Meetings

China 13-Jun-16 G20 meeting (China) 3-Sep-16

China 29-Oct-15 ASEM summit (Mongolia) 13-Jul-16

India 6-Oct-15 COP21 (France) 30-Nov-15

Brazil 19-Aug-15 G20 meeting (Turkey) 15-Nov-15

Japan 8-Mar-15 UN Sustainable Development Summit (UN) 25-Sep-15

Vatican 20-Feb-15 World Economic Forum (Switzerland) 22-Jan-15

Table 3: Angela Merkel’s trips abroad for which climate change was mentioned in the chancellery’swebsite reporting (2015-November 2016)

Table 4: John Kerry’s climate-related bilateral and multilateral meetings that werementioned on Twitter

John Kerry

Bilateral meetings Multilateral meetings

France 7-Oct-16 Montreal Protocol COP (Rwanda) 14-Oct-16

China 3-Sep-16 Montreal Protocol Meeting (Austria) 22-Jul-16

India 30-Aug-16 Nordic-USA Summit (Sweden) 13-May-16

Bangladesh 29-Aug-16 US-Caribbean-Central America Energy Summit (US) 4-May-16

Kenya 22-Aug-16 Paris Agreement signing ceremony (UN) 22-Apr-16

Colombia 1-Aug-16 Future of Energy Global Summit (US) 5-Apr-16

Senegal 22-Jul-16 UNFCCC COP21 (France) 30-Nov-15

Denmark/Greenland 17-Jun-16 Climate and Clean Energy Investment Forum (US) 20-Oct-15

Norway 16-Jun-16 Expo 2015 (Italy) 17-Oct-15

China 5-Jun-16 Major Economies Forum on Energy & Climate (US) 29-Sep-15

EU 4-May-16 Glacier Conference (US) 31-Aug-15

France 15-Apr-16

Laos 24-Jan-16

Mexico 16-Dec-15

Egypt 1-Dec-15

France 30-Nov-15

India 30-Nov-15

Norway 20-Oct-15

Vatican City 23-Sep-15

India 21-Sep-15

tical hurdles, and multilateral forums would provide amore suitable venue for this type of diplomatic activity.

Commissioner Cañete’s word cloud also confirmsthe importance of developing countries in the EU’sclimate diplomacy. The most-tweeted country is theleader and representative of the High AmbitionCoalition, the Marshall Islands. The volume of tweets

to other countries is significantly higher in Cañete’sfeed than in Kerry’s. This suggests that the EUattempted to build coalitions and engage third coun-tries in their climate diplomacy, even if they did nottravel as extensively for high-level bilateral visits asthe U.S. did.


The diplomatic outreach to non-EU countries ofFrench foreign minister and president of the 2015COP, Laurent Fabius, is listed in Table 6 . Given thatthe information is taken from Fabius’ Twitter accountand only includes visits in which climate is specificallyreferenced, it seems likely that the actual number ishigher. The table below suggests that Fabius’ cloutwas used to engage some of the major players suchas China, India, and South Africa (chair of the G77group). In addition to Fabius’ outreach, LaurenceTubiana, the French Special Ambassador for ClimateChange in the run-up to the Paris COP, was extremelyactive in reaching out to other countries. She madebetween forty-five and fifty trips to different countriesin the period before the Paris COP.52

Table 7 lists German foreign minister Frank-WalterSteinmeier’s trips to non-EU countries in 2016 and

2015 during which climate change was discussed,among other issues. It is based on the reports thatcan be found on the German foreign ministry’swebsite. The volume of meetings that includedclimate-related discussions is significantly smallerthan that of the U.S. and French foreign ministers. Ofcourse, the data sources differ but, as discussedabove, they can serve as proxy for prioritization andactivities of the different foreign ministers. Reports onseven out of the sixty-one trips mentioned on theministry’s website for the period of January 2015-November 2016 mention climate change. Similar toMerkel, Steinmeier addressed climate change inmeetings with emerging economies. Brazil stands outwith two meetings within a timeframe of sevenmonths.

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Miguel Arias Cañete


China* 23-Sep-16 Pre-COP ministerial meeting (Morocco) 18-Oct-16

Morocco* 22-Sep-16 Montreal Protocol COP (Rwanda) 14-Oct-16

Canada* 22-Jul-16 Ratification of Paris Agreement (UN) 7-Oct-16

U.S.* 22-Jul-16 Major Economies Forum on Energy & Climate (UN) 24-Sep-16

China* 29-Jul-16 Montreal Protocol Meeting (Austria) 22-Jul-16

Algeria 23-May-16 St Petersburg Dialogue (Germany) 4-Jul-16

US 7-May-16 G20 Energy Ministerial (China) 29-Jun-16

Japan* 1-May-16 Bonn ADP Sessions (Germany) 26-May-16

China* 23-Apr-16 G7 Energy Ministerial Meeting (Japan) 2-May-16

Iran 17-Apr-16 Major Economies Forum on Energy & Climate (US) 24-Apr-16

India 31-Mar-16 Paris Agreement signing ceremony (UN) 22-Apr-16

U.S. 16-Feb-16 High Ambition Coalition (UN) 21-Apr-16

Algeria 23-May-16 Cartagena Dialogue (France) 14-Apr-16

US 7-May-16 EU-OPEC Meeting (Belgium) 21-Mar-16

Bhutan* 10-Dec-15 IRENA Assembly (UAE) 17-Jan-16

Turkey 3-Dec-15 UNFCCC COP21 (France) 30-Nov-15

IEA Ministerial Meeting (France) 17-Nov-15

Atlantic Council (Turkey) 19-Nov-15

*meeting at margins of a multilateral event

Table 5: Miguel Arias Cañete’s climate-related bilateral and multilateral meetings that werementioned on Twitter


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Figure 4: Exemplary tweet by ClimateCommissioner Miguel Arias Cañete

Figure 5: Exemplary tweet by Secretary of StateJohn Kerry

Table 6: Laurent Fabius’ climate-related bilateral and multilateral meetings that werementioned on Twitter

Laurent Fabius


India 20-Nov-15 IRENA Assembly (UAE) 17-Jan-16

South Africa 21-Nov-15 UNFCCC COP21 (France) 30-Nov-15

Brazil 22-Nov-15 Pre-COP Ministerial Meeting (France) 8-Nov-15

Nigeria 16-Sep-15 Bonn ADP Sessions (Germany) 20-Oct-15

UNSG 26-Aug-15 Peoples’ Summit (Bolivia) 12-Oct-15

Peru 26-Aug-15 Ministerial Consultations (France) 27-Jul-15

South Africa 29-May-15 World Summit Climate and Territories (France) 3-Jul-15

China 15-May-15 Expo 2015 (Italy) 17-Oct-15

Paraguay 5-Mar-15 World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (Japan) 13-May-15

Morocco 9-Mar-15 World Sustainable Development Forum (India) 5-Feb-15

Iran 5-Mar-15 UNFCCC COP20 (Peru) 1-Dec-14

Philippines 26-Feb-15

India 5-Feb-15

China 2-Feb-15

EU 19-Jan-15

Canada* 12-Dec-14

U.S. 11-Dec-14

Peru* 11-Dec-14

Saudi Arabia 10-Dec-14

India* 10-Dec-14

Bolivia 10-Dec-14

*meeting at margins of a multilateral event


The analysis of key actors’ tweets reveals a differencebetween the political level at which climate diplomacyculminates. While in the U.S. the highest political levelengaged in entrepreneurial leadership, in the EU thepolitical level of decision-makers involved differs. Atthe level of the EU institutions, the issue-specificpolitician, Climate Commissioner Cañete, is highlyinvolved. French foreign minister Fabius engagedactively in diplomatic outreach. The presidential levelin France seems less involved, similar to the Presidentof the European Commission. In Germany, the highestpolitical level of chancellor Merkel seems moreinvolved in climate diplomacy than her foreign minsterbut the volume of her activities remains significantlybelow those of Kerry and Cañete. A second transat-lantic difference in terms of the partners to whom theEU and the U.S. reached out was confirmed and isfurther discussed in the following section, whichfocuses on the interaction across the Atlantic onclimate diplomacy and leadership.

EU-U.S. Climate Cooperation and Divisionof Labor

Transatlantic interaction on climate diplomacy andleadership can be characterized as an implicit divisionof labor. The EU and United States’ climate diplomacyand leadership were largely complementary activitiesduring the Obama presidency. There was no jointtransatlantic strategy but instead loose cooperation,frequent information exchange, and unilateral adjust-ment to the red lines of (in particular) the U.S. Given

their different characteristics, the EU and theUnited States did what they could do best andused their comparative advantages in the interna-tional system and their existing relationships andnetwork structures.

Both the United States and the EU engaged indifferent kinds of coalition building, both bridgingthe divide between developed and developingcountries. The United States advanced the nego-tiation process by achieving a breakthrough in itsengagement with China and other emergingeconomies. The EU drove the process through itsengagement with least developed and most vulner-able countries. These two sets of activities are onlypart of a broader set of activities, but they can beconsidered as defining moments in the entire

process.

U.S.-EU interaction in the climate negotiations thatculminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreementcan be characterized as information exchange andregular discussions. Their climate diplomacy effortscannot be characterized as relatively harmonizedstrategies. Both had distinct negotiation positions thatin the course of the period from 2013 to 2015converged on some points. The EU insisted on andemphasized the importance of a legally-binding treaty,including binding mitigation commitments. This wasunacceptable to the United States since legally-binding GHG reduction commitments would mostlikely have required ratification by the Senate, whichis an extremely unlikely scenario. As the negotiationsprogressed, the EU came to accept the legally-binding nature of the international process instead ofthe content of the national contributions.

The United States and the EU diverged in some oftheir positions, but they also shared common groundon the need for transparency and solid measurement,reporting, and verification (MRV) provisions, the abol-ishment of the division between developed and devel-oping countries into two distinct categories, and thecommitment of all parties to joint goals while differ-entiating in the details. They emphasized differentaspects but there was no great contradiction or sharpconflict.

In the past, EU-U.S. relations in the UNFCCC nego-

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Table 7: Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s trips abroad forwhich climate change was mentioned in the foreign

ministry’s website reporting(2015-November 2016)

Frank-Walter Steinmeier


China 8/10-Apr-16 none

Tajikistan 1-Apr-16

India 4/5-Oct-15

Bangladesh 19-Sep-15

Brazil 19/21-Aug-15

Peru 14-Feb-15

Brazil 12/13-Feb-15


tiations were not always harmonious. The negotiationof the Kyoto Protocol ended with the United Statespushing through its preference for market-basedmechanisms. The COP in The Hague that was dedi-cated to operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol’s flexiblemechanism collapsed because of EU-U.S. differ-ences and in 2001 President George W. Bush offi-cially withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, entirelyabandoning the UNFCCC process.53

In the negotiations leading to the adoption of the ParisAgreement, EU and U.S. positions were not antago-nistic, but also not entirely unified. Regardless of theirpositional differences, the EU’s and U.S.’ coalitionbuilding proved to be complementary, with both ofthem engaging in the type of activity for which it wasbest positioned. Given their different characteristics,the EU and the United States could not have doneexactly the same things. Both did what they could dobest and used their comparative advantage in theinternational system and their existing relationshipsand network structures.

The United States’ greatest influence derived from itscooperation with China and due to the fact that aclimate agreement without the United States wouldhave excluded a large GHG emitter. Everyone wasaware of the U.S.’ red line and took it into account.The United States is a greater structural power ineconomic and climate terms than the EU but wasvery committed to reaching an agreement. Its struc-tural power combined with its entrepreneurial leader-ship can explain its big footprint on the ParisAgreement. The EU and its member states played aleadership role by trying to ratchet up the level ofambition of the agreement. They consistently hadmore ambitious positions than the United States.Since those positions were beyond the red line ofthe great powers of the United States and China, notall parts of their positions were necessarily enshrinedin the text of the Paris Agreement, but they made asignificant contribution by maintaining the level ofambition and pushing others as far as they couldpossibly go.

The EU played an important role in reaching out andbuilding bridges to developing and most vulnerablecountries that wanted to see ambitious targets andstrong commitment by developed countries. The

United States played the role of bringing otherpowerful actors on board, most notably China.Germany and France also reached out to emergingeconomies, in particular to China, India, and Brazil,but the Europeans’ engagement with China did notinclude the high-level joint declarations that the U.S.issued together with China. The intensity of the U.S.’outreach to China seems to exceed that of theEuropeans.

Both the EU and the United States have worked ontheir credibility, engaging in exemplary leadership byadopting domestic policies and making sure that theyare perceived as sincere actors. They were withoutdoubt driven by their domestic context and politics.Obama had clear boundaries within which he neededto operate, and that determined key elements of hisposition. The EU’s internal policymaking proceduresand its long history of leadership rhetoric and ambi-tions were reflected in the priorities and proposals ofits negotiating position. A process of binding commit-ments at the EU level that then need to be imple-mented at the member state level and a fairdistribution of climate targets among EU member

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states are crucial elements of EU climate policy andinfluence the EU’s preferences for the internationallevel.

Overall, in the lead-up to the Paris Agreement thetransatlantic dimension of climate diplomacy wascharacterized by an implicit division of labor in whichthe United States and the EU each did what theycould do best and for which they had the necessarytraits, credibility, and skills. After the adoption of theParis Agreement both the United States and the EUcontinued to put their individual contexts and skills touse in the process of ratification, although this canbe considered less a complementary division of labor.Rather, the actions of the U.S. precipitated urgentand unconventional action on the part of the EU toensure that the momentum garnered from Paris couldcontinue into the crucial stages of ratification andimplementation.

Ratification of the Paris Agreement seems to be yetanother success of U.S. climate diplomacy and of itsoutreach to China. On the eve of the G20 summit inHangzhou in September 2016, President Obama andPresident Xi announced their countries’ ratification ofthe Paris Agreement. This announcement put pres-sure on the EU to accelerate its own ratificationprocess. Initially, the EU had stated that its ratificationcould take a few years. When there was the threatthat the Paris Agreement could enter into forcewithout the EU, commencing the decision-makingprocess under the Paris Agreement without EUinvolvement, the EU engaged in an unprecedentedspeedy ratification procedure, thereby lifting the Paris

Agreement across the ratification threshold of fifty-five countries, representing 55 percent of globalGHG emissions.

Also in the context of the negotiation and adoption ofthe Kigali Amendment, transatlantic cooperationthrough mutually supportive activities seem to havecontributed to the process. In the negotiations of theICAO a rare incident for recent climate-related nego-tiations occurred during which the EU and the U.S.presented conflicting positions. Yet, diplomacy wasable to overcome this hurdle.

Overall, climate diplomacy and leadership during theObama presidency and in particular during hissecond term of office has been characterized by aremarkable degree of high-level activity. Albeit not aspart of a joint strategy, the EU and U.S. engagementin international climate negotiations has been comple-mentary in an implicit division of labor approach, eachof the jurisdictions using their respective feature,credibility, and skills.

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Many challenges still lie ahead. The election ofDonald Trump as President of the United States hasinjected a great degree of uncertainty into theprocess. International climate negotiations seem likelyto have lost an active, skillful, and powerful leaderwho contributed to driving the process forward. Yet,there are signs that even with an inactive UnitedStates, the process of decarbonization and globalclimate governance will continue, maybe in a some-what more cumbersome manner at times.

The goals set by the Paris Agreement remain to beachieved. Many challenges are still ahead and thenegotiations continue. Two challenges are crucial indetermining whether the Paris Agreement can leadto the success that many observers enthusiasticallyannounced in wake of its adoption: First, the currentNDCs even if fully implemented will lead to a temper-ature increase of 2.7°C at best. The ratcheting up ofnational efforts is essential. If the goal of well below2°C is to be achieved, the NDCs quickly need to bemade more ambitious. Second, the Paris Agreementonly sets out the broad strokes of the proceduresand requirements—the details still need to be nego-tiated. To enable the global stocktaking of nationalefforts and make the five-yearly review process apowerful tool, transparency and MRV are essential.The development of the transparency framework butalso the provision of finance to enable developingcountries’ climate action will be an important part ofthe negotiations in the coming years.54

To achieve the targets that the global community setfor itself, the momentum of the negotiations needs tobe maintained. Political will and intensive investmentin climate diplomacy and leadership need to besustained. While the United States and the EU werekey drivers of the process that delivered a success in

Paris in 2015, the Trump presidency poses a chal-lenge for the EU. Sincere engagement with the mostvulnerable countries to climate change is essential—and so is co-opting China and other major GHGemitters without whose economic transition globalclimate targets will not be achieved. While until theend of 2016 the transatlantic division of labor waswell suited jointly to engage in these activities, theEU needs to reconsider its strategy for the periodfrom 2017 onward.

It seems unlikely that Donald Trump will further pursuePresident Obama’s recognition of the high level ofpriority and urgency that the climate change chal-lenge poses. It cannot be expected that the UnitedStates will strive to fulfill its promises of 26-28percent GHG emissions reductions below 2005levels by 2025. Yet, the contours of Trump’s climatepolicy are unknown and unpredictable. At his energyspeech in May 2016 at the annual Williston BasinPetroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota,Trump vowed to “cancel the Paris Agreement.” Yet atthe first debate between the presidential candidatesin September 2016, Donald Trump denied havingsaid that climate change is a hoax invented by theChinese to destroy U.S. competitiveness. Afterwinning the election Trump told reporters that he had“an open mind” on climate change, only to be contra-dicted by his press secretary days later. Theseconflicting statements make it difficult to assess hisefforts to further pursue or dismantle climate diplo-macy. During the election campaign, Trump promisedcurtailing oil and gas regulations, expanding areas fordrilling, and abolishing the Clean Power Plan. DonaldTrump’s previous tweets pertaining to climate policyseem to promise an extremely radical break fromObama’s policies but the extent to which those opin-ions and campaign speeches will be reflected in

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THE FUTURE OF TRANSATLANTIC CLIMATEDIPLOMACY


actual policy remains to be seen.

Donald Trump will not easily be able to withdraw theU.S. from the Paris Agreement’s official rules andprocedures, but he can easily disengage in climatediplomacy, stall the U.S. domestic climate policyprocess, and withdraw U.S. international climatefinance. This will lead to the U.S. not fulfilling thepromises it made in its NDC and undermining thetrust and close ties that the U.S. had establishedthrough lengthy and intensive hard work. An alterna-tive, and perhaps more pessimistic, scenario is thatthe Trump administration continues participating inthe UNFCCC process but with the aim of derailingthe process and watering down the level of ambition.

Many of the Paris Agreement’s commitments areshared commitments. It moved away from the modelthat only a few countries engage in climate action.This joint effort is a fragile construction. When one ofthe large actors withdraws from the common commit-ment, it poses challenges for the remaining parties.Why would the others increase their action so that

the U.S. can free ride, or even worse, counteract theachievements of others who reduce their impact whilethe United States is not engaging in climate mitigationaction?

It seems unlikely, however, that U.S. climate policywill cease. Subnational and municipal activity will likelycontinue. For example, California, New York State,and a number of large U.S. cities will most likelycontinue their ambitious plans. This is, of course, notthe same as additional national action that comple-ments and spurs subnational climate action. Also,none of these subnational entities can substitute forthe U.S. government in the official UNFCCC negoti-ations and engage in climate diplomacy with Chinaand India on par.

Taking the United States out of the UNFCCC equa-tion will not be easy. It will leave a leadership voidthat will be not easy to fill. The EU’s engagement withChina seems even more important in that context.The international climate leadership void created bythe election of Donald Trump places high expecta-tions on the EU, China, and other key climate actors.Yet, for the EU it is also far from obvious that it canmaintain its climate ambitions and leadership.

The UK departing from the EU is one of those uncer-tainty factors. Prime Minister Theresa May abolishedthe UK Department for Energy and Climate Changeon her first day of office and integrated it into theDepartment for Business, Energy, and IndusrialStrategy. The term “climate change” is not containedin the department’s title, which could hint at a lowerlevel of priority in future UK policy and politics. TheUK generally has been one of the drivers of ambitiousEU climate policy. With its departure, the role ofGermany, which has been another advocate of ambi-tious EU climate policy, and other progressive EUmember states becomes even more important. Therecent announcement by German economy ministerGabriel that the country will not abolish coal before2040 could cast doubts about Germany’s climatepolicy ambitions—or rather its ability to live up to thetargets that it has set for itself.

Notwithstanding all uncertainties and concerns, aninactive United States is not a new phenomenon ininternational climate negotiations. Previous U.S. pres-

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Figure 9: Exemplary re-tweet by ClimateCommissioner Miguel Arias Cañete

Figure 10: Exemplary tweets by Donald Trump


idents disengaged, which was a setback but did nothalt the process. The EU has evolved as a climateleader and developed many new skills, structures,and networks. It could seize the opportunity andfurther profile itself as a key player on climate gover-nance. China has expressed a firm commitment toclimate policy, which also addresses some of its otherdomestic problems such as air pollution and energysecurity. The leadership void created by the UnitedStates can provide opportunities for new or enhancedleadership by others, including the EU and China.

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NotesUNFCCC Article 2, C2ES, History of International Climate Negotiations.Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (no date),http://www.c2es.org/international/history-international-negotiations. Ed King, “Kyoto Protocol: 10 Years of the World’s First Climate ChangeTreaty,” Climate Change News, 16 February 2015.Christopher Napoli, “Understanding Kyoto’s Failure,” SAIS Review ofInternational Affairs 32, no. 2 (2012): 183-196.Peter Christoff, “The Bali Roadmap: Climate Change, COP13 andBeyond,” Environmental Politics 17, no. 3 (2012): 466-472.John Vidal, “Copenhagen Climate Failure Blamed on ‘Danish Text,’” TheGuardian, 31 May 2010,https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/31/climate-change-copenhagen-danish-text.C2ES, Summary: Copenhagen Climate Summit. Centre for Climate andEnergy Solutions (2009),http://www.c2es.org/international/negotiations/cop-15/summary.C2ES, Durban Climate Conference – COP17. Centre for Climate andEnergy Solutions (2011), http://www.c2es.org/international/ negotia-tions/cop-17.UNFCCC, Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for EnhancedAction (ADP) (no date), http://unfccc.int/ bodies/body/6645.php. Article 2, Paris Agreement and UNFCCC Decision 1/CP.21Article 4, Paris AgreementKelly Levin and Taryn Fransen, Why Are INDC Studies ReachingDifferent Temperature Estimates? (Washington, DC: World ResourcesInstitute, 2015).Sebastian Oberthür, “Linkages Between the Montreal and KyotoProtocols. Enhancing Synergies Between Protecting the Ozone Layerand the Global Climate,” International Environmental Agreements:Politics, Law and Economics 1, no. 3 (2001): 357-377.David Leonard Downie, “International Environmental Regimes and theSuccess of Global Ozone Policy,” in The Global Environment.Institutions, Law, and Policy, ed. Regina S. Axelrod and Stacy D.VanDeveer (Thousand Oaks: CQ Press, 2015): 83-109.14 Arild Underdal, “Leadership Theory: Rediscovering the Arts ofManagement”, in International Multilateral Negotiation. Approaches tothe Management of Complexity, ed. William Zartman (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994): 178.15 Steinar Andresen and Shardul Agrawala, “Leaders, Pushers andLaggards in the Making of the Climate Regime,” Global EnvironmentalChange 12, no. 1 (2002): 41-51; Duncan Liefferink and Rüdiger K.W.Wurzel, “Environmental Leaders and Pioneers: Agents of Change?”Journal of European Public Policy online first (2016); Charles F. Parkerand Christer Karlsson, “Climate Change and the European Union’sLeadership Moment: An Inconvenient Truth?” Journal of Common MarketStudies 48, no. 4 (2010): 923-943; Oran R. Young, “Political Leadershipand Regime Formation: On the Development of Institutions inInternational Society,” International Organization 45, no. 3 (1991): 281-308.16 Pa Oudsman Jarju, Climate Diplomacy Can Build the Trust Needed toSecure Our Common Future (London. International Institute forEnvironment and Development, 2014). Available at:http://www.iied.org/climate-diplomacy-can-build-trust-needed-secure-our-common-future; Nick Mabey, Liz Gallagher, and Camilla Born,Understanding Climate Diplomacy. Building Diplomatic Capacity andSystems to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change (London: Climate andDevelopment Knowledge Network, 2013): 7.17 Stavros Afionis, “The European Union as a Negotiator in theInternational Climate Change Regime,” International EnvironmentalAgreements: Politics, Law and Economics 11, no. 4 (2011): 341-360;Arild Underdal, “Causes of Negotiation ‘Failure,’” European Journal ofPolitical Research 11, no. 2 (1983): 183-195.18 Charles F. Parker, et al., “Fragmented Climate Change Leadership:Making Sense of the Ambiguous Outcome of COP-15,” EnvironmentalPolitics 21, no. 2 (2012): 271.19 Duncan Liefferink and Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel, “Environmental Leadersand Pioneers: Agents of Change?” Journal of European Public Policyonline first (2016); Sebastian Oberthür and Lisanne Groen, “The

Effectiveness Dimension of the EU’s Performance in InternationalInstitutions: Towards a More Comprehensive Assessment Framework,”Journal of Common Market Studies 53, no. 6 (2015): 1319-1335.20 Charles F. Parker, et al., “Fragmented Climate Change Leadership:Making Sense of the Ambiguous Outcome of COP-15,” EnvironmentalPolitics 21, no. 2 (2012): 271.21 Duncan Liefferink and Rüdiger K.W. Wurzel, “Environmental Leadersand Pioneers: Agents of Change?” Journal of European Public Policyonline first (2016): 7.22 Ibid., 7.23 Ibid., 3.24 Raino Malnes, “‘Leader’ and ‘Entrepreneur’ in InternationalNegotiations: A Conceptual Analysis,” European Journal of InternationalRelations 1, no. 1 (1995): 92-93.25 Ibid., 88-89.26 Charles F. Parker, et al., “Fragmented Climate Change Leadership:Making Sense of the Ambiguous Outcome of COP-15,” EnvironmentalPolitics 21, no. 2 (2012): 271; Tora Skodvin and Steinar Andresen,“Leadership Revisited,” Global Environmental Politics 6, no. 3 (2006):13-27: 14; Arild Underdal, “Leadership Theory: Rediscovering the Arts ofManagement”, in International Multilateral Negotiation. Approaches tothe Management of Complexity, ed. William Zartman (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994: 185.27 Charles F. Parker, et al., “Fragmented Climate Change Leadership:Making Sense of the Ambiguous Outcome of COP-15,” EnvironmentalPolitics 21, no. 2 (2012): 272.28 Arild Underdal, “Leadership Theory: Rediscovering the Arts ofManagement”, in International Multilateral Negotiation. Approaches tothe Management of Complexity, ed. William Zartman (San Francisco:Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994: 183.29 Sebastian Oberthür and Claire Roche Kelly, “EU Leadership inInternational Climate Policy: Achievements and Challenges,” TheInternational Spectator 43, no. 3 (2008): 35-50. Nick Mabey, Liz Gallagher, and Camilla Born, Understanding ClimateDiplomacy. Building Diplomatic Capacity and Systems to AvoidDangerous Climate Change (London: Climate and DevelopmentKnowledge Network, 2013): 8.Stavros Afionis, “The European Union as a Negotiator in theInternational Climate Change Regime,” International EnvironmentalAgreements: Politics, Law and Economics 11, no. 4 (2011): 341-360;Arild Underdal, “Causes of Negotiation ‘Failure,’” European Journal ofPolitical Research 11, no. 2 (1983): 348.Ibid., 352.Michele M. Betsill and Elisabeth Corell, eds., NGO Diplomacy. TheInfluence of Nongovernmental Organizations in InternationalEnvironmental Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008): 39.Karin Bäckstrand and Ole Elgström, “The EU’s Role in Climate ChangeNegotiations: From Leader to ‘Leadiator,’” Journal of European PublicPolicy 20, no. 10 (2013): 1369-1386.Louise van Schaik and Christian Egenhofer, “Reform of the EUInstitutions: Implications for the EU’s Performance in ClimateNegotiations,” CEPS Policy Brief 40 (2003): 1.Simon Schunz, “Explaining the Evolution of European Union ForeignClimate Policy: A Case of Bounded Adaptiveness,” European IntegrationOnline Papers 16, no. 6 (2012): 17-18.Stavros Afionis, “The European Union as a Negotiator in theInternational Climate Change Regime,” International EnvironmentalAgreements: Politics, Law and Economics 11, no. 4 (2011): 351).Karin Bäckstrand and Ole Elgström, “The EU’s Role in Climate ChangeNegotiations: From Leader to ‘Leadiator,’” Journal of European PublicPolicy 20, no. 10 (2013): 1369-1386.Wolfgang Obergassel, et al., Phoenix from the Ashes. An Analysis ofthe Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (Wuppertal: Wuppertal Institute for Climate,Environment and Energy, 2016): 14-15.Sebastian Oberthür, “Where to go from Paris? The European Union inClimate Geopolitics,” Global Affairs online first (2016): 4.Wolfgang Obergassel, et al., Phoenix from the Ashes. An Analysis ofthe Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on

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Climate Change (Wuppertal: Wuppertal Institute for Climate,Environment and Energy, 2016): 9.Karl Mathiesen and Fiona Harvey, “Climate Coalition Breaks Cover inParis to Push for Binding and Ambitious Deal,” The Guardian, 8December 2015. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environ-ment/2015/dec/08/coalition-paris-push-for-binding-ambitious-climate-change-deal. European External Action Service and European Commission, EUClimate Diplomacy for 2015 and Beyond. Reflection Paper, Brussels, 27June 2013: 1.Katja Biedenkopf and Diamuid Torney, “Cooperation on GreenhouseGas Emissions Trading in EU-China Climate Diplomacy,” in China-EUGreen Cooperation, ed. Etienne Reuter and Jing Men (Singapore: WorldScientific Publishing, 2015): 21-38.European Commission, Implementation Plan of the EU Strategy forSupporting Disaster Risk Reduction in Developing Countries 2011-2014,Brussels, 16 February 2011: 5.Joanna Depledge, The organization of global negotiations: Constructingthe climate change regime (Earthscan, 2013).Kai Monheim, How Effective Negotiation Management PromotesMultilateral Cooperation: The Power of Process in Climate, Trade, andBiosafety Negotiations (New York: Routledge, 2014). FranceDiplomatie, “China and France Joint Presidential Statement onClimate Change,” <http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/climate/2015-paris-climate-conference-cop21/article/china-and-france-joint-presidential-statement-on-climate-change-beijing-02-11>. Elysée, “India and France Joint Statement,” <http://www.elysee.fr/decla-rations/article/india-and-france-joint-statement/>.Wolfgang Obergassel, et al., Phoenix from the Ashes. An Analysis ofthe Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (Wuppertal: Wuppertal Institute for Climate,Environment and Energy, 2016): 7.Jeff Goodell, “The Secret Deal to Save the Planet. Inside the High-stakes Drama Behind Obama’s Climate Talks,” Rolling Stone Magazine,9 December 2014.Pilita Clark, “Women of 2015: Laurence Tubiana,” Financial Times, 11December 2015.Simon Schunz, “Explaining the Evolution of European Union ForeignClimate Policy: A Case of Bounded Adaptiveness,” European IntegrationOnline Papers 16, no. 6 (2012): 15.Wolfgang Obergassel, et al., Phoenix from the Ashes. An Analysis ofthe Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (Wuppertal: Wuppertal Institute for Climate,Environment and Energy, 2016): 4.

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Located in Washington, D.C., the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies is an independent, non-profit public policy organization that worksin Germany and the United States to address current and emerging policy challenges. Founded in 1983, the Institute is affiliated with The Johns HopkinsUniversity. The Institute is governed by its own Board of Trustees, which includes prominent German and American leaders from the business, policy, andacademic communities.

Building Knowledge, Insights, and Networks for the Future

PR64 cover_AICGS.PR11.Cvr.qxd 12/20/2016 1:50 PM Page 1

aicgs policy report€¦ · paris agreement on climate change. germany, france, and the united...

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