The European Union (EU) began developing climate policy in the 1990s. Since then, it has built up a broad portfolio of mitigation policy measures and governance tools, including legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and policy measures addressing emissions trading, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and more. In 2019, the European Commission—the EU's executive arm—published the European Green Deal (EGD), an overarching policy framework to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. The EGD aims to push EU climate policy and governance far beyond incremental policy development. In this article, we ask: does the EGD represent a break from past patterns of EU climate governance? We argue that it maintains several past patterns, but nevertheless breaks from other established policy and governance trends. We review insights from politicization and new institutionalist theoretical lenses to help us understand these findings. We reveal certain tensions and challenges inherent in the EU's climate governance approach—around speed and coherence, effectiveness and just transition—that highlight future research needs, and raise questions about the EU's ability to implement its climate policy goals.

中文翻译：

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欧盟气候政策的三十年：迈向气候中和？

欧盟 (EU) 在 20 世纪 90 年代开始制定气候政策。自那时起，它建立了广泛的缓解政策措施和治理工具组合，包括具有法律约束力的减少温室气体（GHG）排放的目标，以及解决排放交易、可再生能源、能源效率等问题的政策措施。2019年，欧盟执行机构欧盟委员会发布了《欧洲绿色新政》（EGD），这是到2050年实现气候中和目标的总体政策框架。EGD旨在推动欧盟气候政策和治理远远超出增量政策制定的范围。在本文中，我们要问：EGD 是否代表了对过去欧盟气候治理模式的突破？我们认为，它保留了过去的几种模式，但仍然打破了其他既定的政策和治理趋势。我们回顾政治化和新制度主义理论视角的见解，以帮助我们理解这些发现。我们揭示了欧盟气候治理方法中固有的某些紧张和挑战——围绕速度和一致性、有效性和公正过渡——突出了未来的研究需求，并对欧盟实施其气候政策目标的能力提出了质疑。