Introduction

Since 1996, EU climate policy has subscribed to the overall objective of ensuring that global average temperatures do not exceed 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Achieving this target will require fundamental shifts in European and global energy systems. The EU's 2008 climate–energy package, which set out a 20% emissions reduction target by 2020, was a significant step forward in political commitment, but still fell well short of the IPCC's recommendation (Pachauri and Reisinger 2007) of a 25–40% cut by industrialised countries by 2020. The European Council has, since 2007, also been committed in principle to a reduction in collective emissions from industrialised countries by 60–80% by 2050 – a figure broadly commensurate with the IPCC's advice (see Chapter 3).

What stands out about all these goals is that they deal with what many of today's governors would consider to be the very long-term future, although in scientific terms is not. Given that climate policy is such a long-term undertaking, there is a need to understand whether these and other policies are likely to be robust over these timescales; in other words, capable of performing well under a range of different conditions.

The general aim of this chapter is to explore how EU climate policy might evolve in the period from 2020 to 2040 given a set of different policy contexts. In effect, we reverse the emphasis on historical developments of Parts II and III, and examine how policy might unfold in the future.