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On the politics of climate change: is there an east–west divide?

Author : Institute for World Economics (IWE)

David Ellison

Politics lie at the centre of the allocation process for CO2/GHG (carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas) reduction targets and quotas in the European Union (EU). Though most presumably agree that EU allocation of CO2/GHG reduction targets and quotas should both equalize (burden-sharing principle) and minimize the impact across individual states, the process by which state-by-state quotas are allocated is anything but transparent. Moreover, judging by the response of 8 of the 10 New Member States (NMS’s) to the CO2/GHG quotas allocated for the 2008–2012 period,1 or by the response of most of the NMS’s to the current country-level GHG emission reduction targets proposed as part of the EU’s 2020 Climate Change Package introduced on January 23, 2008, the process appears potentially tilted toward the interests of the Old Member States (OMS’s). The veracity of this claim aside, the relative lack of transparency in the decision-making process begs the question both of whose interests are most strongly represented in the final burden-sharing and quota allocation and why this is so. This paper investigates both why EU member states are strongly divided over CO2/GHG reduction targets and quota allocations as well as whose interests are most strongly represented in the current structure of EU allocations. Interest divergence is clearly most strongly felt at and below the national level of interest formation. Yet, what defines the foundation for such interest divergence remains both under-researched and controversial. Any number of factors—the relative energy mix(coal, oil, nuclear, renewable or other form), the form of carbon mitigation promotion at the national level, or relative export carbon intensity—can potentially influence the relative interests of individual countries. Comparatively little attention, however, has been paid to the core problem of variation in relative levels of economic development.

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