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It’s not as simple as copy/paste: the EU’s remobilisation of the High Ambition Coalition in international climate governance

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Abstract

Following the success of the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) in contributing to the UNFCCC Paris Agreement in 2015, the European Union (EU), which played an instrumental role in the coalition, remobilised, along with its partners, the HAC to support two key international climate agreements in 2016: the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol and the ICAO Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Despite these negotiations taking place simultaneously within a push for climate action following COP21 and having significant EU involvement, the HAC produced mixed results. While the HAC appeared successful in helping to secure an ambitious agreement in Kigali, thanks to broad involvement from the EU and HAC partners, this was not the case with ICAO CORSIA, where the EU struggled to mobilise its HAC partners. This article answers the question Why was the EU successful in its involvement with the High Ambition Coalition in the negotiations leading to the Kigali Amendment yet unsuccessful in the ICAO CORSIA negotiations? In conducting a detailed “most similar” case study comparison, it identifies three contextual (scope) conditions that needed to be present for such success: capacity of the HAC for collective action, a favourable institutional environment in the negotiating forum in question, and the availability of sufficient time to influence the negotiations.

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Data availability

The interview transcriptions that support the findings of this study are not openly available due to them containing information that could compromise research participant privacy/consent. However, reasonable requests can be made to the corresponding author for access to anonymised transcripts.

Notes

  1. Although the EU can be considered a coalition in its own right, this article views it as actor and thus coalition member. This approach is consistent with the literature on EU climate action (cf: Oberthür & Dupont (2021)).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) under Grant T.0064.19. I am very grateful for the helpful comments and suggestions provided by Tom Delreux, Diana Panke, Katja Biedenkopf, Franziska Petri, Frauke Pipart, and two anonymous peer reviewers. I also wish to thank Allison Bearly for her editing and input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe, University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium

    Joseph Earsom

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  1. Joseph Earsom
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Correspondence to Joseph Earsom.

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Appendix 1: List of interviews

Appendix 1: List of interviews

Interview

Date

Category

Kigali Amendment

1a

04/11/2021

EUMS

2a

16/11/2021

EUMS

3a

16/11/2021

EUMS

4a

18/11/2021

EU

5a

26/11/2021

EUMS

6a

01/12/2021

EUMS

7a

02/12/2021

EUMS

8a

14/12/2021

Non-EU HAC partner

9a

17/12/2021

Secretariat

CORSIA

1b

14/06/2021

EU

2b

16/06/2021

EU

3b

17/06/2021

EU

4b

30/06/2021

EU

5b

01/07/2021

EUMS

6b

06/07/2021

EU

7b

06/07/2021

EU

8b

27/07/2021

EU

9b

28/07/2021

EUMS

10b

29/07/2021

Non-EU

11b

11/08/2021

2 persons: EUMS and Secretariat

12b

18/02/2021

EU

13b

22/02/2021

EUMS

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Earsom, J. It’s not as simple as copy/paste: the EU’s remobilisation of the High Ambition Coalition in international climate governance. Int Environ Agreements 23, 27–42 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-023-09592-z

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