Global justice and EU climate policy in a contested liberal international order

Abstract

Following the failure of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in 2009 in Copenhagen, the European Union has significantly altered its negotiation strategy in the global climate regime. It moved from an emphasis on ‘leadership by example’ and an insistence on top-down, binding targets within a framework of strong global governance institutions (impartiality in global justice terms) towards a strategy of shared leadership, increased dialogue (mutual recognition) and acceptance of more voluntary instruments (non-domination). This article traces this shift through an examination of EU policy documents and makes sense of it by reference to learning effects of an EU with solidarist ambitions in a pluralist international society, and the changing power distribution and contestations of the post-Cold War liberal order on the global level. Furthermore, it assesses the consequences of the shift for international society (especially concerning different ‘solidarisms’) and global climate justice. We argue that while a changed EU approach has been vital to maintaining the EU's status as a relevant actor and to secure the Paris Agreement, too much emphasis on the pluralist dimension and non-domination may also hinder effective global solutions to climate change. It is therefore vital that the EU continues its solidarist ambitions by pushing for rigorous measures of accountability, but also by alleviating structural domination in the climate regime and particularly by better recognizing and including civil society actors from the global South.

Political practitioners and scholars alike have repeatedly constructed the post-Cold War liberal international order (LIO) as contested, in decline or even already failing, citing the continuous rise of autocratic powers such as China, the deepening rift in the West during the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States, or Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Interestingly, this literature has largely ignored the global climate regime, even though it is intrinsically linked to the LIO and has undergone profound changes in the past decades. The regime illustrates one of the central dilemmas of contemporary global order, namely that it is becoming increasingly more pluralist, while at the same time facing challenges that can only be solved collectively.

The European Union has played a key role in shaping both the LIO and the global climate regime, and at the same time has encountered increasing contestation of its policies and visions for global order. In this article we aim to better understand the changes in and assess EU policy towards the climate regime from a political justice and international society perspective. This enables us to better understand the shortcomings and contestations of the broader LIO and global governance, as well as possible ways to address them. Our argument conceptually contributes to the debate about pluralism and solidarism in international society theory by specifying two conflicting dimensions of solidarization, which we argue are at the heart of some of the contestations of the LIO.

First, our analysis engages in the increasingly more important discussion on climate justice,¹ which so far has hardly played any role in analyses of the EU's involvement in the global climate regime. Second, we situate EU climate policy in a broader theoretical context than previous analyses have suggested. Such analyses often primarily looked at EU climate policy from a leadership perspective or focused on its effectiveness, and did not link it to questions of global order and the LIO. We draw attention to the need to balance competing normative demands, which is key when it comes to sustaining an inclusive, just, and ultimately legitimate international order.

Our first contribution thus takes up climate change as one of the core policy areas in the foreign policy of the EU, which has been one of the key drivers of the global climate regime. The EU has been called a ‘green normative power’ and climate leader,² and its climate policy has been seen as evidence of a ‘green and global Europe’.³ From an EU perspective, the development of a global climate regime has thus been an essential part of building the LIO. The EU has conceptualized this order as rules-based, focused on international institutions and committed to, but not confined to, market liberalism. While it has been a strong supporter of global trade liberalization,⁴ it has at the same time emphasized binding and global responsibilities, especially in the area of climate change.⁵ Yet it is in this very area that some of the contradictions of EU global policy and the LIO come to the fore, which have provoked contestation and resistance, even from within the ‘liberal West’. US objections to a stronger climate regime concerned both the degree to which the LIO may infringe on state sovereignty and whether the rights strengthened within the LIO ought to be primarily economic rights within a market setting, or encompass social and ecological rights, including those of future generations.

The 2015 Paris Agreement (PA) on climate governance is a result of a shift in EU policy and its vision of international order in response to these challenges. Instead of setting binding standards on a top-down basis, the PA's main mechanism, consisting of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), leaves it to member states to decide what they intend to contribute to global climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Whereas the Kyoto Protocol and its addendums relied on compliance with mutually agreed and binding standards, the PA works almost exclusively via discursive pressure to get states to ratchet up their commitments.

We argue that the EU's top-down approach towards global climate change, pursued until the deciding Conference of the Parties (COP15) in 2009 in Copenhagen, became untenable because it implied an excessive degree of Eurocentric domination while ignoring the failures and inconsistencies of the EU's own policies. The EU approach to the global climate regime thus had to confront the broader contestations of the LIO. Yet the response in the Paris Agreement led to a heavy emphasis on justice as non-domination. This gave states too much leeway to avoid the necessary tough decisions to change their fundamental energy policies so as to provide an adequate substantive response to the challenge of climate change. We thus advocate a normative basis for global climate politics that keeps in balance the three core principles of global political justice outlined by Sjursen in the introduction to this special section—justice as non-domination, impartiality and mutual recognition—which not only holds true for the climate regime, but for the LIO in general.⁶ While it was wrong to assume that all states would agree with the EU's framing of the climate crisis, and while EU policy did not sufficiently take civil society voices from the global South into account in the past, combating climate change is not something that may be left to states alone. It is therefore necessary to reflect on the consistency of the EU's own policy and adjust the market and state focus of the LIO, while at the same time insisting on the importance of binding rules in multilateral frameworks, even if the way these are negotiated needs to take more seriously the multitude of voices from a diversity of state and non-state actors.

In arguing for a rebalancing of justice principles and associated policy choices in the climate regime, our second contribution draws on conceptualizations of interstate relations as an international society that moves between the poles of pluralism and solidarism.⁷ We see the EU's vision of an LIO as a conceptualization of international society in line with the solidarist principles of global responsibilities, transformation of sovereignty, multilateral institutionalization, and the inclusion of non-state actors as bearers of universal rights and duties.⁸ We argue that this solidarist vision is an expression of the LIO that at the same time is contested from within the liberal camp. Alternative renditions of the LIO thus often draw much more on pluralist conceptions of international society, in which non-domination is prioritized, and in which states and state sovereignty play a much stronger role. Instead of siding with one or the other position, analytically we see them as poles of a continuum, between which the order of international society must continuously be negotiated. Furthermore, we argue that there are in fact two different visions of a solidarist international society: one emphasizing impartiality, and one mutual recognition. In our view, the discussions about international order, especially in relation to climate change, have too often emphasized the pluralist or a particular solidarist angle, and have failed to appropriately consider that a ‘reconstitution of the liberal order’⁹ must always involve a balance between the three poles.

The following section links climate change and the global climate regime to the different conceptions of international society, and develops their association with different principles of global justice. We then proceed with tracing the historical development of EU policy towards the global climate regime as a move from a strongly solidarist position in Kyoto, with heavy emphasis on impartiality, to a more pluralist position with an emphasis on non-domination and some inclusion of mutual recognition. We note and applaud the attempt to reinsert stronger elements of impartiality post-PA, but also stress the inconsistencies within EU policy and those between policies at the EU and member-state levels. This leads us to developing our case for a reconstitution of the LIO through a rebalancing of the three principles of justice and a reorientation towards a solidarist position that combines mutual recognition and impartiality without ignoring the challenge of non-domination. While the current geopolitical context may not be conducive to such a rebalancing, the Russia–Ukraine war, with its implications for energy and thus for climate security, has at the same time made such efforts even more urgent.

Climate change, international society and global justice

Our analytical framework rests on two pillars. The first pillar understands the EU promotion of a global climate regime as being caught up in the tensions and contestations of the LIO between a pluralist and different solidarist visions of international society. The second links these versions of international society to different conceptions of global justice. Taken together, these two pillars point to the normative complexities of the climate regime and the EU's engagement in this regime. They allow us to trace changes in EU policy not only in terms of shifting interests, but highlighting the normative implications and underpinnings of those changes as well as drawing wider conclusions concerning the LIO.

Climate policy in the LIO between pluralism and solidarisms

One of the main characteristics of the LIO was its challenge to exclusivist conceptions of state sovereignty through strengthening multilateral institutions and the centrality of shared rules,¹⁰ most notably in the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court, as well as in the Responsibility to Protect. The latter in particular set out a revised understanding of sovereignty not only as a right but as a responsibility, involving duties towards individuals outside a state's own territory without abandoning the centrality of the state as the main form of political organization.¹¹ Such a responsibility also includes the protection of the environment and thus the mitigation of climate change to safeguard the life chances of future generations.¹² The evolving climate regime therefore is part of this broader change in international order. Analytically, the concept of international society allows us to systematically capture these changes and discuss their normative implications. Our first conceptual step thus links the climate regime and its setting within the LIO to the notion of a changing international society.

Analysts of international society distinguish between a ‘pluralist’ and a ‘solidarist’ variant.¹³ The core norms of a pluralist international society are the protection of state sovereignty and, concomitantly, the ostracism of, particularly military, intervention. Its main underpinning value is the preservation of cultural diversity through a plurality of territorially defined states. Climate change in such a society is a matter for individual states and nations.

At the other end of the spectrum, in a solidarist international society, states commit themselves to a greater array of norms and institutions, including human rights or environmental protection, thus limiting their sovereignty and opening the door to interventions by other states to protect those norms. States thus consider themselves responsible for individuals beyond their borders, and extensively engage in international institutions with supranational elements. Climate change in such a society becomes a matter of joint concern, justifying infringements on state as well as individual autonomy. In advanced regional integration projects, this may lead to an order in which the core principles and institutions differ substantially from those of a pluralist international society, and in which the constituent units may be fundamentally reshaped.¹⁴

Climate change by its very nature transcends the territorial boundaries of states and thus challenges traditional, pluralist conceptions of international society. It primarily affects individuals and groups of people across borders (and time), making it a problem of world society, conceptualized as the global collective of human beings. As such, it is an issue that a predominantly pluralist international society cannot easily handle. The rise of climate change on the international agenda since the late 1980s has been a consequence of increasing scientific evidence, transnational pressure, and the advocacy of some states as well as the EU. The emergence and strengthening of the climate regime since its inception in Rio de Janeiro in 1992¹⁵ is a clear indication of the solidarization of international society since the end of the Cold War and the role of the EU in pushing this process,¹⁶ as well as the difficulties of promoting world societal causes in a state-dominated order. The history of the climate regime also demonstrates the changing influence, virtues and problems of the EU as a normative power (i.e., pushing cosmopolitan values and transcending traditional state structures, but at the same time overlooking Eurocentric domination and a normalization of the EU as a great power),¹⁷ the increasing influence of China¹⁸ and several rising powers in the global South, as well as the continuing importance of the United States.¹⁹

This solidarization faced at least two kinds of contestations. One emphasized the benefits of the state as a container and guarantor of national identities and interests, thus sticking to a pluralist conception of international society. A second contestation resulted from different visions of solidarization, which drew on the tension within liberalism between predominantly economic, market and liberal democratic principles on the one hand and social, rights-based principles on the other. While these were articulated under the same umbrella term, they were at the same time leading to contradictions and fragmentations.²⁰

Instead of an opposition between pluralist and solidarist international societies, we should therefore think in terms of a spectrum along which international societies have moved throughout history.²¹ And instead of a single continuum between pluralism and solidarism, we suggest that there are various processes of solidarization, which focus either on the development of supranational governance or on the inclusion of civil society actors. A closer look at the LIO and the role of the climate regime within that order illustrates these different solidarizations.²²

Solidarizations and global justice

The preceding discussion has illustrated the importance of different rights within different conceptualizations of solidarization and the LIO. Following Sjursen's introduction to this special section, we understand these struggles over rights as expressions of different liberal conceptions of global political justice. While the traditional pluralist vision of a liberal order emphasizes the state as the just place to agree on rules, solidarist accounts differ in the degree to which just global governance must include binding supranational agreements to safeguard the rights of individuals, present and future, or involve such individuals or affected groups in decision-making, and if so, in which form.

These questions are of central importance to the global climate regime, but have so far not been central to the debate on global climate justice, which traditionally has mostly focused on the substantive issues of the subjects of justice and the just distribution of costs or abatement duties, leading to the formulation of and contestation between a number of core principles, such as the ability to pay, the polluter pays or the beneficiary pays.²³ In terms of the solidarization of international society, however, substantive principles of justice must be complemented by procedural justice concerns: does the governance of a specific policy area replicate the predominance of states, include affected individuals and other non-state actors, or establish global institutions that constrain states and provide impartial advice and assessments?²⁴ This is all the more relevant given the long-term and all-encompassing nature of climate change that will require constant readjustment and renegotiation of political measures. In the following, we therefore focus on three core procedural principles of justice and how they relate to different versions of international society: non-domination, impartiality and mutual recognition.²⁵ In doing so, we do not wish to imply that substantive justice is unimportant—as we have already argued, certain approaches to procedural justice find their limits in not effecting the necessary substantive changes. We merely wish to rectify a bias in the existing debate and show how these different conceptions of political justice inform different visions of a liberal order.

Non-domination is the prevailing principle of justice in visions of liberal order that build on a pluralist conception of international society.²⁶ Sovereignty, in its traditional conceptualization, is about reaching decisions and being able to implement them without external interference. In the present configuration of international society, it is still states that enjoy such sovereignty. Societies, defined within national boundaries, are considered to be treated justly if they are free to decide about their own fate within the scope of state-based decision-making rules.²⁷ As we have already noted in our discussion of pluralism, non-domination alone cannot adequately deal with world societal problems such as climate change, which require solutions that necessitate limitations to sovereignty. In fact, too much procedural non-domination concerning climate abatement regulations increases the emission-based domination of vulnerable states and people. However, non-domination may still be an important principle to prevent actors from overriding or ignoring the legitimate concerns of others (be these states in international society or other actors in world society),²⁸ and to highlight structural domination and hegemonies in international institutions and their decision-making procedures. The EU, in striving for a solidarist climate regime as part of the LIO, has in fact often ignored such concerns, voiced by both other industrialized states and actors from the global South, which has made it impossible to agree on a global climate regime.

Impartiality is the principle diametrically opposed to non-domination and mainly corresponds to a solidarist vision of international society that prioritizes supranational institutional arrangements. It conceptualizes justice as universal and thus transcending national or cultural contexts. While this leads to a focus on achieving substantive justice, impartiality also has a strong procedural dimension, as its implementation relies on an independent arbiter who is able to reconcile different justice claims on the basis of objective knowledge—for instance climate science or the theoretical work on climate justice—and who may thus impose particular solutions on actors.²⁹ This corresponds to a cosmopolitan reading of world society, of which the main concern is not the protection of specific groups or communities but the pursuit of effective and just solutions to global problems. It is easy to see why impartiality may seem particularly applicable in a field such as climate change with its transnational problem structure and scientific grounding, institutionalized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet impartiality is not without its own problems. In an international order shaped by pluralist norms, it risks the ‘imposition of international purpose’³⁰ by hegemonic actors and the marginalization and sometimes antagonization of other actors.³¹

Mutual recognition as a principle of global justice is mainly concerned with the recognition of difference and the inclusion of a broad variety of actors and concerns in the decision-making process,³² and thus offers a different vision of solidarization, yet without entirely abandoning pluralist concerns. When mainly applied to states, hence recognizing their different positions in the negotiations, it comes close to a pluralist position; yet when focusing on the inclusion of civil society, it strengthens the solidarist pole. As such, any international institutional set-up that takes mutual recognition seriously would have to involve both states and non-state actors and provide for a fair and transparent hearing of those affected by climate change, independent of their power and standing in contemporary international politics. This may even involve actors who cannot be physically present in the negotiations, such as future generations. Mutual recognition therefore provides an alternative to impartiality as a principle of justice that may guide the institutional developments in a solidarizing international society. Thus, if the EU is to contribute to a transcendence of the classic, pluralist international society, it may foster more impartiality or mutual recognition with very different consequences for the pursuit of particular instruments and institutional set-ups in policy areas such as climate change. Mutual recognition may also, however, mean that maximalist demands are not realizable, and that procedures may lead to solutions that are considered unjust in substance by some, as they rely on dialogue and compromise and may not be able to protect those most threatened by climate change.

Advancing a liberal order thus raises fundamental questions not only about the focus of the substantive justice of liberalism in terms of a tension between economic freedom and social responsibility, but also about procedural justice in terms of the safeguarding of sovereignty, ensuring compliance with a rules-based order based on objective expertise, and the inclusion of multiple affected actors in decision-making processes. Likewise, advancing the global climate regime as part of a solidarization process in the LIO must not only take into account substantive justice concerns, but also navigate the demands coming from the three corners of a procedural justice triangle. Given its self-understanding as a climate leader and normative power, the context of the LIO, and its preference for multilateralism, the EU was unlikely to pursue a development of the climate regime in line with a pluralist conception of international society that would have emphasized the concerns of state-focused non-domination. Yet the development of EU policy towards global climate change is nonetheless an instructive story about the pitfalls of the different justice principles when enacted in global politics, and of the contestations of and tensions within a solidarization of international society. In the following, we trace and then assess the EU engagement in the global climate regime with reference to both of our conceptual pillars.

Our study builds on an analysis of core EU documents as well as interviews with decision-makers in the European Commission, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and member state representatives. While parts of this story of the development of EU climate policy are not new,³³ the story has so far been told with a focus on leadership and effectiveness and without reference to climate justice, which however has become an ever more important element of the climate governance debate. Examples are the use of justice arguments by social movements such as Fridays for Future, but also by (developing) states in the international negotiations.³⁴ Our analysis thus provides an important entry point for debating the future of EU policy towards the global climate regime in relation to questions of justice, with a focus on the procedural questions of political justice. These are reflected in the broader debates about the future of the LIO as a specific, albeit flawed, attempt to solidarize international society. Our study, while focusing on climate change, thus links the problems in the development of the global climate regime and the EU's role in it to the broader contestations of solidarization and offers insights with a significance for the development of global governance more generally.

The EU's quest to solidarize the climate regime

The EU began to actively engage with international climate negotiations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the United States relinquished its forerunner position in environmental policy and the EU itself came into being with the Maastricht Treaty; from the beginning, it aspired to increase its presence, and prove its ‘actorness’,³⁵ on the international stage.³⁶ Its approach was intertwined with its self-image as a new political actor which wanted to ‘shape’ what is considered ‘normal’ in international politics.³⁷ Thus, building on its core normative pillars such as multilateralism, international law, human rights, sustainable development and the precautionary principle, the EU was keen to act on climate change on the supranational level. In line with an impartial conceptualization of justice,³⁸ its main target was agreement on ambitious and legally binding measures to curb global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—later also referred to as the ‘targets and timetables’ approach.³⁹

Naturally, talking about a single EU position is a simplification. Over the years there have been considerable differences between member states and different EU institutions concerning climate policy. Thus, internally, pluralist notions of international society have always played a role, but became even more important after several rounds of enlargement and a growing scepticism to an ‘ever closer union’ in the mid-2000s.⁴⁰ A key example is the contentious discussion about a carbon tax in the 1990s, which eventually was not implemented, not least due to concerns about the states' sovereign prerogative when it comes to taxation.⁴¹ Nevertheless, environmental and climate policy soon became a field where the EU exercised a relatively high level of competency, and the EU's external climate strategy has been less contested than some climate policies within the EU itself.

Despite the EU's growing significance as a political actor and the conducive multilateral context of the LIO in the early 1990s, the bloc faced difficulties both in its quest to solidarize international society and in projecting the associated understanding of climate abatement onto the international climate negotiations. During the talks about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the early 1990s, the EU was not able to overcome the US emphasis on state sovereignty and its resistance to a legally binding regime with concrete emission-reduction targets.⁴² This eventually led to an agreement that mainly strengthened non-domination of already powerful states instead of impartiality, and placed the tackling of a world societal problem in the framework of a predominantly pluralist international society. Thus, on the one hand the UNFCCC includes some elements that link to impartiality and a solidarist understanding of international society. Examples are the reference to climate change as a ‘common concern of humankind’, calls for ‘the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response’,⁴³ and the aspiration to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. Moreover, it alludes to the precautionary principle and introduced the idea of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ that distinguished between the duties of industrialized and developing countries.⁴⁴ However, the UNFCCC remained a non-binding and primarily pluralist agreement between states. It repeatedly emphasized the importance of ‘the principle of sovereignty of States’, explicitly underlined their ‘sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies’, and failed to introduce concrete measures to decisively curb global emissions.⁴⁵

Notwithstanding these initial difficulties, the EU became a key player in the negotiations on the first legally binding treaty to tackle climate change: the Kyoto Protocol,⁴⁶ adopted in 1997. Keeping its emphasis on impartiality and a solidarist drive towards multilateralism and juridification of the international, the EU stressed the need for ‘quantified objectives for significant overall reductions of greenhouse gas emissions after the year 2000 below 1990 levels, within specified timeframes’,⁴⁷ and was one of the first actors to accept the 1996 recommendation of the IPCC to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.⁴⁸ All this was part of an emerging strategy to listen to science and to ‘lead by example’, which was to become a cornerstone of the EU's climate strategy until 2009⁴⁹ but which was also deeply embedded in the EU's general vision of the LIO.

Although, due to US and Australian insistence, the Protocol included some measures that allowed states to circumvent strict targets and thus undermined its impartial character (e.g. carbon dioxide sinks and market mechanisms),⁵⁰ it was legally binding and contained concrete, obligatory and (judged by the standards of the 1990s) ambitious emission reduction targets for most industrialized countries.⁵¹ Moreover, the EU was able to negotiate a tightening of the implementation rules for the market mechanisms,⁵² secured the adoption of the 2001 Marrakesh Accords, and was instrumental in ensuring that the Kyoto Protocol finally entered into force in 2005, following a lengthy ratification process.⁵³ While far from abandoning pluralist principles altogether, Kyoto came much closer to the solidarist ideal of guaranteeing just outcomes through supranational institutions by strengthening its mandatory elements and specifying concrete emission reduction targets, both of which de-emphasized the former focus on state sovereignty in the UNFCCC.

Resting on this relatively successful solidarization, the EU was eager to secure an even more comprehensive and ambitious successor agreement at COP15 in 2009.⁵⁴ To close the increasing ‘credibility gap’ between its ambitious international positions and at times wanting domestic action,⁵⁵ and to emphasize its aspiration to lead by example, it adopted a climate and energy package⁵⁶ that included a 20 per cent GHG emission reduction target by 2020. However, in the end, the deciding COP15 became one of the largest failures of the climate negotiations in general and EU diplomacy in particular, and showcased the limits of the EU's ability to solidarize international society.

At the conference, the increasingly influential BASIC group of countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) and the United States largely sidelined the EU during the deciding moments of the negotiations,⁵⁷ illustrating the decline of the LIO and the renewed emphasis on pluralism. They opposed ambitious, binding emission reduction targets, and instead insisted on state sovereignty and voluntary, ad hoc commitments.⁵⁸ Eventually, the participants of the COP were not able to agree on a new treaty, and COP15 ended with the declaratory, voluntary Copenhagen Accord, which largely mirrored the structure of the UNFCCC. This strengthened the non-domination of large emitters and at the same time worsened the emission-related domination of vulnerable states and populations instead of underlining impartial principles or strengthening mutual recognition.

This failure became an important turning-point in the EU's perception of itself, its climate strategy and its attempts to solidarize international society. It initiated a process of ‘strategic learning’⁵⁹ in which the EU placed more emphasis on pragmatic diplomacy and foreign policy, not least exemplified in the 2016 Global Strategy and its focus on ‘principled pragmatism’.⁶⁰ Thus, recognizing the increasing pluralist transformation of the LIO⁶¹ and the climate regime, and having realized that the old ‘targets and timetables’ and ‘leadership by example’ approaches were no longer working, especially when it came to convincing fast-growing developing countries such as Brazil, China or India, the EU fundamentally changed its strategy. When it came to its approach to the international negotiations, the EU increasingly moved to a strategy of ‘shared leadership’ and adopted the role of a ‘leadiator’⁶² between industrialized and developing countries, strengthening mutual recognition and, partly, non-domination.

While not giving up its ultimate goal of advancing a law-based, multilateral international society, the EU became more open towards playing the pluralist game to eventually reach this goal. Thus, instead of solely relying on its own example, on pressuring others to accept binding emission reduction targets, or counting on strong international norms and institutions, the EU reinforced its climate diplomacy and began to conceptualize climate change not as an environmental, but as a strategic foreign policy issue.⁶³ The new goals were to pragmatically collaborate with the different factions in the negotiations, to recognize the different perspectives of other actors (especially of the G20), build bridges between industrialized and developing countries, and hence build broader support and alliances for a new climate agreement at COP21 in Paris in 2015.⁶⁴ This included the stronger involvement of the EEAS in the preparation of the EU's climate and negotiation strategy, in contrast to the past, when EU actors had tended to consider climate policy primarily a technical issue. It also entailed efforts to use the member states' diplomatic personnel for climate mainstreaming within the so-called Green Diplomacy Network, and the active support of climate delegations from the global South.⁶⁵ Eventually, this changed approach to the climate negotiations served as a clear indication of a move away from the earlier focus on solidarization through advancing supranationalism and binding agreements on the basis of expertise. Instead, the EU was now acknowledging the demands of non-domination, and at the same time was pursuing a different form of solidarization through engaging with affected non-state actors in the global South—thus incorporating a degree of mutual recognition in its climate diplomacy.

This shift in the EU's policy towards the global climate regime significantly contributed to the adoption in 2015 of the Paris Agreement, which introduced a new organizational architecture for the regime.⁶⁶ The PA was a desperately needed success for EU climate diplomacy—and was, to a considerable extent, made possible by bargaining between states behind closed doors. While it mixes elements of mutual recognition and non-domination, it predominantly exemplifies the re-emergence of a more pluralist international society. On the one hand, in line with mutual recognition, it follows a bottom-up logic of relying on NDCs for GHG reductions and adaptation measures. The same is true for the greater involvement of civil society actors at the COP, and when it comes to ‘naming and shaming’ states and corporations into action. Together with salvaging the international regime itself, both of these aspects broadly align with the solidarist emphasis on non-state actors and shared values.

On the other hand, however, the voluntary character of the NDCs, the strong role of states and intergovernmental bargaining, and the failure to permanently give civil society actors and marginalized voices from vulnerable communities in the global South actual voting power in the negotiations all point to non-domination and to the strengthening of a pluralist international order. Yet it is highly doubtful whether such a voluntary approach will be sufficient to actually lower global warming to below 2, let alone 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.⁶⁷ This perpetuates the emission-based domination of large parts of the global population. Thus, ultimately, the EU regained some of its influence on the negotiations but was only partially able to shape the substantive pillars of the regime itself or to continue its quest to solidarize international society.

In the COPs that followed the Paris conference (most notably COP24 in Katowice in 2018 and COP26 in Glasgow in 2021), the EU tried to redeem its lost influence on the substance of the regime. It sought to strengthen the transparency and accountability rules concerning the creation and implementation of the NDCs (also referred to as the Paris Rulebook), and at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022 accepted the establishment of a fund for ‘loss and damage’ to compensate particularly vulnerable countries. Relating to the EU's own turn towards

‘principled pragmatism’,⁶⁸ we see this as an attempt to bring back impartiality and advance solidarist positions ‘through the pluralist back door’.⁶⁹

Solidarization in a pluralist world: a normative assessment of the EU's involvement in the global climate regime

The EU's initial uncompromising drive towards impartiality and the solidarization of international society, focusing mainly on binding targets and timetables, top-down regulations, and exporting the EU's own norms and values, did not achieve its desired effects. It was contested from both proponents and critics of the LIO, who increasingly opposed the EU narrative and the broader liberal ideational hegemony of the climate crisis as a ‘scientific problem’⁷⁰ that could be solved by implementing the right instruments to curb GHGs. Large developing countries, in particular, have challenged this Eurocentric approach and questioned the impartiality of international climate institutions such as the IPCC or the COPs. Instead, citing the colonial past and the historic exploitation of resources by the global North, these countries see climate change primarily as a political problem deeply intertwined with an unfair distribution of power in international society, a western bias in the underpinning ideas of the climate regime and scientific solutions, and an exploitative international economic system.⁷¹ The global order thus has always been more multifaceted than acknowledged by the EU and other northern actors, and universalist arguments and conceptions of justice need to become more open to input from the global South.⁷²

The general re-pluralization of international order since the mid-2000s further reinforced these contestations and made an adjustment unavoidable. The changes in the EU's climate strategy—towards playing the pluralist game and putting more emphasis on non-domination and mutual recognition—were thus essential from both a practical and a normative perspective. They helped to bring about the Paris Agreement and went some way towards addressing the problem that the EU's insistence on impartiality reflected a considerable degree of Eurocentrism and thus of domination.

At the same time, a world societal problem such as climate change cannot be successfully tackled through instruments in line with pluralism and non-domination alone. Our account of the EU engagement in the climate regime corroborates our theoretical argument that the pursuit of both solidarism based on impartiality and pluralism focusing only on non-domination is normatively problematic as well as politically unfeasible. Neither strategy will enable the international society to achieve its core aim of keeping global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius and thus preventing human suffering, and both ultimately inflict tremendous costs on the worst affected countries and communities in the global South. We therefore argue in favour of EU climate policy towards de-emphasizing non-domination, while insisting on impartiality with a heightened degree of reflexivity as well as a stronger focus on mutual recognition.

Moving towards more mutual recognition requires serious dialogue with civil society and with the most affected actors, especially those in the global South.⁷³ This involves the institutionalized consultation of these groups during the early stages of the policy formation phase within the EU, working towards their more structured inclusion in the actual negotiations (e.g. establishing ‘best practices’ for the organization of COPs), or using the EU's diplomatic power to strengthen their position in the domestic climate discussions of their respective countries (e.g., in the formation of nationally appropriate mitigation actions and the gathering of data for the global stocktake within the Paris Agreement).

In contrast, the importance given to state-based non-domination in the Paris Agreement is problematic. On the one hand, respecting the sovereignty of developing countries, supporting delegations of so far marginalized states, or building alliances between countries to advance measures to combat climate change may help to adopt effective and just political measures. Likewise, even voluntary commitments may contribute to these goals if they help to bring new actors on board and to strengthen the trust between developed and industrialized countries (or, for that matter, between different EU member states). And finally, given the persisting domination of the climate regime and knowledge production by the global North, working towards a more equal distribution of power and decolonizing international institutions such as the IPCC is undoubtedly necessary.⁷⁴

On the other hand, however, a climate regime and EU policy that is predominantly centred on non-domination will not be enough.⁷⁵ As the past has shown, leaving it to individual states to implement the necessary measures or relying on voluntary measures and market solutions will most likely lead to inaction and freeriding, while making mitigation policies dependent on domestic political debates. Similarly, peer pressure and ‘naming and shaming’, which are the central instruments of the Paris Agreement for ensuring ever more ambitious NDCs on the part of the COP participants, have worked partially at best. Ultimately, too much non-domination concerning the political measures to incite climate action increases the domination of the most vulnerable people by means of continued emissions. It also creates new rifts in international society, for instance between large developing countries such as China or India, and small or particularly vulnerable developing countries such as small island states, which suffer most from the consequences of a changed climate.⁷⁶

We thus argue in favour of a more self-reflexive reconstitution of impartiality and solidarization, without which transnational collective action problems such as climate change cannot be solved. This means that the EU needs to find ways to continue working towards the reintroduction of measures linked to impartiality, yet it must at the same time recognize the limits and biases of these projects. Since it is unlikely that COPs in the foreseeable future will agree on a new, more binding climate agreement, it remains essential for the EU to strategically make use of the Paris Agreement's ambition and ratcheting-up mechanisms to incrementally push towards more ambitious mitigation efforts and other specific additions to the regime. The adoption of the Paris Rulebook and the acceptance of a fund for loss and damage are laudable first steps in this regard. In addition, however, the EU—as a whole, but in particular its member states—must themselves follow consistently what they preach to others. The tedious debates about the ‘green taxonomy’ (especially the inclusion of natural gas), the phasing out of fossil fuel-powered cars (e.g., exemptions for e-fuels, pushed by Germany, and the limited support of the ‘Accelerating to Zero Coalition’ by EU member states), and the ‘insufficient’⁷⁷ overall climate targets and measures exemplify that there is still a long road ahead. Moreover, the degree to which energy security has trumped environmental concerns in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the disagreements between EU member states over various initiatives at COP26 in Glasgow, have not helped the image of the EU as a credible ‘leadiator’ and advocate of solidarization and impartiality.

Conclusion

Much like the broader discussion about the LIO, the debate about the global climate regime is characterized by often extreme assessments oscillating between jubilation and condemnation. Similarly, the EU's role in global climate politics has received widely differing appraisals. At the same time, the effectiveness of EU engagement is not usually linked to debates about climate justice, which in turn do not sufficiently take into account questions of procedural justice. This overlooks an increasingly central dimension of the issue that is at the heart of key contestations of the current climate regime but also of the LIO at large. To overcome this impasse, we have suggested an analytical framework that combines different conceptualizations of international society with a triad of approaches to political justice. In particular, such a perspective helps us to identify and address a central dilemma: a global order that is increasingly becoming more pluralist, while at the same time facing challenges that can only be solved collectively. Our account of the EU's role in the development of the climate regime has thus questioned the equation of the EU's pursuit of a binding regime with a heavy emphasis on impartiality on the one hand and a just climate policy on the other. Instead, we have pointed to competing justice claims within the climate regime, and the need to maintain a balance between them. Climate policy thus must involve a solidarization of international society and cannot be tackled on the basis of pluralist non-domination alone. Yet this solidarization must balance the need for impartiality with the need for mutual recognition of a plurality of affected actors, especially civil society groups in the global South. This holds true not only from a normative climate justice perspective, but also from a more pragmatic standpoint that recognizes the new realities of an increasingly multifaceted global order in which the West/North can no longer ignore the legitimate concerns of the global South.

We have shown how the emphasis on binding agreements in line with EU norms has not only contributed to antagonization within the negotiations, and thus to failure of the attempts to construct a post-Kyoto agreement: it has also led to global injustices in the neglect of the voices of vulnerable communities and their needs, as well as the lack of a sufficiently self-reflexive position that would problematize EU member states' historical legacies and current economic practices. In our normative assessment of EU policy, we found too much emphasis on non-domination in the efforts to make the Paris Agreement possible. We thus welcomed the insistence of the EU on binding elements in the post-Paris Rulebook negotiations. Yet at the same time, the EU has undermined its own position, with member states disagreeing on a number of initiatives at past COPs and privileging economic security over climate security following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Furthermore, the EU's involvement of civil society actors from the global South remains patchy and heavily influenced by EU interests rather than serious engagement.

Our argument implies a heavier emphasis on global justice concerns than previous accounts of EU policy towards the global climate regime have displayed. It is through this emphasis that the contestations of the regime and the broader LIO in which it is set may be more adequately understood than by reference to interests and power alone. Beyond reflections on the climate regime and the LIO, our discussion of different justice principles has also led to a contribution to the debate about pluralism and solidarism in international society, as it has allowed us to specify two aspects of solidarization that are often seen as being closely associated, but that may in fact stand in tension to each other not only in climate policy: the insistence on impartial global governance structures, and the increasing involvement of civil society actors.

The global climate regime is an instantiation of a broader problem of global governance: the challenge to acknowledge and embed different justice concerns. This challenge, which is crucial to the development of any international order, cannot be adequately dealt with within the framework of a pluralist international society alone. It must be resolved through a continuous negotiation between different claims of justice.

This negotiation of the space between non-domination, impartiality and mutual recognition will never be completed and always requires adjustments. It will always disappoint those who call for radical solutions, as it disappointed EU actors at the Copenhagen climate summit. Yet, at the same time, steering a path between these different justice demands and the different visions of international society that they imply is a necessity to make not only the climate regime but any reconfigured international order both more effective and more just.

Footnotes

Author notes