China And The Eu Position In The International Climate Negotiations Comparative Analysis

As a serious global environmental issue, climate change arouses increasingly attentions from political, economic, environmental, technological, and legal fields etc. By awakening the environmental concerns of scientists and policymakers around the world, the issue has become an international imperative, which requires cooperation between countries to pursue global governance. To coordinate the actions to address climate change, the United Nations officially launched the international negotiations since 1990s. In practice, these negotiations have acquired several considerable achievements, which include the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol, and Bali Road Map etc.As an essential part of the global governance on climate change, the international negotiations on the problem are game in nature, in which each country or group will chase the common interests on the premise of the differences in scientific acknowledge, demands of economic benefits and political desire, aiming to insure its own interests.China and the EU are the major emitters of greenhouse gases, as well as key players, stakeholders in the global governance of climate change. They both take a proactive position on reducing emissions. EU is one of the initiators of international climate negotiations, and plays a leading role in the Kyoto Process and Post-Kyoto process. As the largest developing country bearing responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, China also has indispensable and critical impact in the development of climate negotiations.By a comparative analysis of the positions of China and EU in the international negotiations on climate change, we can see that there are common interests and concerns between the two sides. On the other hand, differences exist on many specific issues, for instance, the mid-term emission reduction targets of the developed countries, the opposition between developed and developing countries on the obligations and the division of responsibilities, which may severely restrains the effects of a substantive progress in a short term.In the future, China and the EU should seek closer cooperation and communication in the climate negotiations, by establishing a strategic dialogue mechanism, which will necessarily narrow the differences and deepen the understandings between each other.