Research On EU's Leadership In Global Climate Governance

Since the beginning of the multilateral global climate governance process at the end of the last century,the EU has been playing a relatively important role and has become an absolute leader in this process by promoting negotiation process of the Kyoto Protocol and its subsequent entry into force.However,at the Copenhagen Climate Conference,under the influence of various factors such as changes in the international climate governance pattern,inadequate climate governance measures within the EU,and the obvious unilateral tendency of the EU's negotiating methods,the EU's leadership declined significantly.During the post-Copenhagen period,the influence and leadership of the EU began to recover gradually,and the way in which its leadership played a role also changed greatly.The EU changed from a tough rule demonstrator to a flexible coordinator,and successively promoted the negotiation process of climate conferences such as Cancun and Durban.In the period of the formation and improvement of the Paris Climate Agreement,the EU continued to play a leading role in balancing and coordinating parties of the governance,and its leadership has been further recovered.This graduation thesis mainly focuses on the leadership of the EU in the field of multilateral global climate governance.By analyzing the formation,performance,evolution and influencing factors of its climate leadership,this paper attempts to form a comprehensive understanding of the leadership of the EU in climate governance.First of all,this thesis sorts out the connotation of the concept of leadership,as well as the different types and the its importance of global climate governance.Secondly,this paper specifically analyzes the EU's climate leadership in terms of both willingness and ability.On the one hand,this paper focuses on the reason why the EU actively plays a leadership role on the climate issue,and explains from the perspectives of economic interests,energy security,concepts,diplomatic strategies and internal needs.On the other hand,this paper attempts to explain the main factors that affect the actual exertion of EU's leadership,and explain the actual performance of the EU's climate leadership by integrating factors such as the changes in structural,instrumental,directional and intellectual leadership,the leader-follow relationship,as well as the changes of international structure and the global climate governance patterns.What's more,this article focuses on the major change in EU climate leadership from the decline at the Copenhagen Climate Conference to the restoration at the Paris Climate Conference.The promotion of the negotiation process of the conference,and the implementation of the agenda are regarded as the external manifestations of the EU's climate leadership change,and the causes of the EU's climate leadership change are analyzed from both internal and external aspects.In terms of internal factors,this thesis analyzes the changes of the EU's climate leadership through the analysis of four different types of leadership:structural,instrumental,directional and intellectual leadership,and the ways in which they play their roles.Among the external influencing factors,this paper focuses on the changes of international structure and international climate governance patterns.Through the investigation of the above variables,this paper analyzes the different positions,propositions and performances of the EU in the Copenhagen Climate Conference and the Paris Climate Conference.This thesis uses inductive method,comparative analysis method and analytic hierarchy process.By analyzing the leadership of the EU in the field of climate governance and its motivation,performance and influencing factors,it is concluded that the EU is the main leader in multilateral global climate governance.With the improvement of the comprehensive national strength and international status of China and other emerging actors,and their increasing willingness to participate in international affairs,the leadership of climate governance has become fragmented,the EU should communicate and cooperate with others in order to jointly promote the deepening of global climate governance.