Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction and overview
- Part II The evolving governance context: the European Union
- Part III Climate policy in the European Union: understanding the past
- 4 Burden sharing: distributing burdens orsharing efforts?
- 5 Renewable energies: a continuing balancing act?
- 6 Emissions trading: the enthusiastic adoption of an ‘alien’ instrument?
- 7 Adapting to a changing climate: an emerging European Union policy?
- 8 Adaptation in the water sector: will mainstreaming be sufficient?
- 9 The evolution of climate change policy in the European Union: a synthesis
- Part IV Climate policy in the European Union: future challenges
- Part V Climate policy in the European Union: retrospect and prospect
- Index
- References
4 - Burden sharing: distributing burdens orsharing efforts?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Part I Introduction and overview
- Part II The evolving governance context: the European Union
- Part III Climate policy in the European Union: understanding the past
- 4 Burden sharing: distributing burdens orsharing efforts?
- 5 Renewable energies: a continuing balancing act?
- 6 Emissions trading: the enthusiastic adoption of an ‘alien’ instrument?
- 7 Adapting to a changing climate: an emerging European Union policy?
- 8 Adaptation in the water sector: will mainstreaming be sufficient?
- 9 The evolution of climate change policy in the European Union: a synthesis
- Part IV Climate policy in the European Union: future challenges
- Part V Climate policy in the European Union: retrospect and prospect
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The principle of burden sharing goes to the very core of climate policy in the EU. Burden sharing – or what Sbragia (2000: 315) terms ‘pollution federalism’ – is one feature of governance that differentiates the EU from other supranational bodies. This chapter focuses on the dilemmas that arise when emission reduction targets are assigned to Member States by governors operating at EU level. The question of how to strike a balance between stimulating emission abatement where it is most cost-effective while satisfying one of the EU's principal norms, namely social and economic cohesion (see Chapter 2), has preoccupied governors since the 1980s. The accession of ten relatively poor new Member States in 2004 has made it even more salient. Lacasta et al. (2007: 218) have argued that, by altering the balance between richer and poorer states, this enlargement has made the EU even more of ‘a testing ground’ for transferable policy ideas and principles.
Burden sharing has proven to be immensely difficult to govern. Over the past two decades, the EU has had not one, but several attempts at developing a durable burden sharing arrangement. The first dates back to 1991/1992 and failed miserably. The second attempt, in 1996/1997, produced an agreement prior to the Kyoto COP, but had to be readjusted a year later (see Chapter 3). The issue of burden sharing reared its head a third time in 2007/2008, when the Commission began to prepare its 20–20–20 package.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Change Policy in the European UnionConfronting the Dilemmas of Mitigation and Adaptation?, pp. 83 - 102Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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