The European Union at the Copenhagen climate negotiations: A case of contested EU actorness and effectiveness
| Author | Lisanne Groen,Arne Niemann |
| Published date | 01 September 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117813497302 |
| Date | 01 September 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Relations
27(3) 308 –324
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117813497302
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The European Union at
the Copenhagen climate
negotiations: A case of
contested EU actorness
and effectiveness
Lisanne Groen
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Arne Niemann
University of Mainz
Abstract
This article analyses the extent of European Union (EU) actorness and effectiveness at the 15th
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties
(COP) meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. Although the EU has been characterised as a
leader in international climate policy-making for some time, the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen
has overall brought about disappointing outcomes for the Union. This casts doubts on EU
actorness and effectiveness in this field. We take the article by Jupille and Caporaso as a conceptual
point of departure and then specify a more parsimonious actorness framework that consists of
coherence and autonomy. Effectiveness is conceptualised as the result of actorness conditioned by
the ‘opportunity structure’, that is, the external context that enables or constrains EU actions. We
hold that EU actorness was only moderate, especially given somewhat limited coherence. In terms
of the opportunity structure, we argue that the strong involvement of other important actors
with rather different positions adversely impacted on EU effectiveness, along with a high degree of
politicisation that constrained the European Union’s ability to negotiate effectively.
Keywords
actorness, BASIC countries, climate change, Conference of the Parties (COP), European Union
(EU), EU external policy, politicisation, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC)
Corresponding author:
Lisanne Groen, Lisanne Groen, Institute for European Studies (IES), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2,
B-1050, Brussels, Belgium.
Email: Lisanne.Groen@vub.ac.be
497302IRE27310.1177/0047117813497302International RelationsGroen and Niemann
2013
Aritcle
Groen and Niemann 309
Introduction
For over a decade, the European Union (EU) has been characterised as a leader in
international climate policy-making and as an important actor in international climate
change negotiations.1 The 15th United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCCC)
Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009 has over-
all brought about disappointing outcomes, especially from the perspective of the EU.
Contrary to EU objectives, no legally binding agreement was reached to succeed the
Kyoto Protocol (KP) after 2012, and the final Copenhagen Accord contained few
ambitious targets. This begs the question of what has happened to EU actorness and
effectiveness in this field. The main purpose of this article thus constitutes an examina-
tion of the extent of EU actorness and effectiveness at the Copenhagen Climate
Conference.
There are additional rationales for analysing EU actorness and effectiveness at
Copenhagen. First, the two concepts have prompted quite a bit of conceptual discussion,2
and remain empirically underexplored, especially in more contested/challenging envi-
ronments, while the EU’s own claims for constituting an actor on the world scene have
further progressed over time. Second, apart from its societal significance, climate change
does not only constitute an important aspect for an EU foreign policy expanding in ambi-
tion and scope, but has even been regarded as a ‘saviour’ issue for the EU integration
project more generally.3 Therefore, the UNFCCC COP15 negotiations deserve (more)
academic attention. Finally, the case is (particularly) interesting to explore because the
COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen marked the first time in the history of the UNFCCC
COP negotiations that so many heads of state and government were present to take the
final decisions at a COP meeting (IISD 2009). This characteristic is hypothesised to have
affected the variation of actorness across the case in hand (and in distinction to earlier
climate change negotiations).
We proceed as follows: first we specify the conceptual framework. Thereafter, we
briefly specify the empirical setting of the Copenhagen summit. In parts 3 and 4, we
probe our two categories of actorness (coherence and autonomy) for the negotiations.
Thereafter, we assess the EU’s effectiveness at the COP15 meeting.
Conceptual framework
For us, actorness is the ability to function ‘actively and deliberately in relation to other
actors in the international system’.4 Similar to Jupille and Caporaso as well as Thomas,
we reject the understanding that actorness equals influence/effectiveness.5 Instead, we
suggest that actorness may enable influence, without entailing the latter. Our point of
departure is the approach by Jupille and Caporaso who devise four criteria for ascertain-
ing actorness.6 The criteria are not absolute, suggesting that actorness is a matter of
degree. The four criteria are recognition, authority, coherence7 and autonomy. These cri-
teria each comprise a number of sub-criteria, as a result of which their model not only
contains substantial duplication and overlap between criteria,8 but also becomes rather
complex and cumbersome. Therefore, we have reformulated the framework in a more
parsimonious fashion.
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