One big conversation: the EU’s climate diplomacy across the international regime complex on climate change: the case of the Paris Agreement Negotiations.

Earsom, Joseph [UCL] Delreux, Tom [UCL]

The EU participates in many international fora related to climate change (e.g. UNFCCC, G20, Montreal Protocol), which collectively make up the international regime complex on climate change (IRCCC). For ambitious actors like the EU, the IRCCC presents the opportunity to use the other fora of the complex to facilitate reaching their objectives when negotiating multilateral agreements. Following empirical hints that the EU has considered using these different fora to such an end, this paper seeks to extend the study of EU climate diplomacy to the IRCCC. It addresses the following research question: How does the EU use the different fora of the IRCCC to achieve its objectives in the UNFCCC? To answer our research question, we examine the case study of the negotiations on the Paris Agreement, adopted within the UNFCCC. Using official documents, reports from media and observers, and semistructured interviews with EU officials involved in the events, we find that the EU’s use different fora is influenced by the level of participants present and the level of abstraction of issues discussed. Along those lines, we develop three different sets of fora (climate-specific, high-level, and horizontal) that served different uses to EU climate diplomacy. As such, the findings not only establish the EU’s strategic use of fora across the IRCCC but also shed light on an under-studied aspect of EU climate diplomacy.