A brief discussion of the most relevant milestones during the initial international debates on climate change demonstrates, f irst, that agen-da-setting on climate change “had functioned as a learning process with scientists as ‘teachers’ and policy-makers as ‘pupils’” (Sjöstedt 1999:
237). Second, many early discussions forcefully shape the debates until the present day (for exhaustive discussions of the historical evolution of the regime: Bodansky 1993, 1994, 2001; Pallemaerts 2004). F inally, the story of the early years shows that the EU on the whole, but especially some of its more active member states, were at the forefront of activities on climate change, with varying degrees of success.
Focusing on the scientif ic discussions f irst, although initial hypoth-eses on the link between atmospherical CO2 and the warming of the plan-et had already been advanced at the end of the 19th century, the study of climate abnormalities was only accelerated from the middle of the 20th century on, primarily in the US (Pallemaerts 2004). After systematic measurements of CO2 concentrations had been undertaken in the 1950s, US President Johnson was informed as early as 1965 by his Science Advisory Committee that the combustion of fossil fuels would “modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or national efforts, could occur”
(White House 1965: 9; Bodansky 1993).
During the 1970s, several steps were taken to further improve the scientif ic knowledge about long-term climatic alterations. The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm called for the installation of centres for measuring air pollu-tion (Pallemaerts 2004: 6). In 1979, the US Napollu-tional Research Council concluded from f irst computer models that the further increase of CO2 emissions would result in climate change, and that there was “no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible” (cited in Bodansky 2001:
24). Organised by the World Meteorological Organisation in Geneva in that same year, the f irst World Climate Conference began to globalise knowledge of the issue by initiating a global climate research programme (Gupta 1998: 181). Started in 1980, the programme was coordinated by the WMO and the International Council for Science, later joined by the UN Environmental Programme.
In the early to mid-1980s, then, several major scientif ic conferenc-es set the agenda for global political debatconferenc-es about how to tackle climate change (Bodansky 2001: 26–27). In 1985, a major international scientif ic conference in Villach, Austria, involving the WMO, UNEP and the ICSU, reunited experts from 29 – mostly European – countries, providing an over-view of the state of the art of climate science and proposing the conclusion of a global treaty to counter climatic changes (Pallemaerts 2004: 7). This and similar events led to a gradual diffusion of knowledge from the scien-tif ic community to political arenas (Bodansky 1993). This trend was most visible in the US, where climatologists like James Hansen testif ied before Congress committees in 1988 (Bodansky 1993). At the same time, f irst systematic efforts to politically assess the f indings of climate science were also undertaken in Europe, e.g. through an Enquête Commission of the German Parliament (Bodansky 2001: 27). Adding to a heightened political and public interest in the topic was the growing concern about the conse-quences of man-made damages to the ozone layer (Bodansky 2001: 27).
Three major political events would ultimately transform climate change into a political issue in this “watershed” year 1988 (Bodansky 2001: 27). In early June, governments requested the WMO and UNEP to jointly set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), thus taking a major step in creating a body that would systematize and centralize research on climate change under intergovernmental oversight (Bodansky 1993: 464, 2001: 28). Second, in the wake of the Montreal Protocol and the Brundtland report, both adopted in 1987, a “Conference on the Changing Atmosphere” was organised in Toronto in June 1988 (Bodansky 1993: 461). Assessing ozone and climate change policy op-tions alike, the over 400 participants from 48 (Western) countries issued a statement in which they called for global reductions of atmospheric con-centrations of CO2 of 20% by 2005 and the drafting of a comprehensive
global convention to protect the atmosphere (Toronto Conference 1988:
para. 22 and 30). Further, the Toronto Conference Statement made – for the f irst time in the context of atmospheric politics – reference to the
“main responsibility” principle, which suggested that the “countries of the industrialized world are the main source of greenhouse gases and therefore bear the main responsibility to the world community” for acting against climatic changes (Toronto Conference 1988: para. 13; Bodansky 1993: 462). Third, climate change made its debut on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. In the autumn of 1988, a debate was held on Malta’s initiative of treating climate as “common heritage of mankind”. It re-sulted in a resolution referring to climate change as “common concern of mankind” necessitating a globally concerted response (UNGA 1989a:
para. 1; Pallemaerts 2004: 9).
1989 saw an acceleration of the politicization trend of the previous years. In addition to discussions of the issue in the newly created IPCC and a call by the Paris G-7 summit for a framework convention on cli-mate change (Bodansky 1993: 466), two signif icant conferences on the topic were held in the Netherlands, one of the most active European coun-tries. In March 1989, a conference on the protection of the atmosphere in The Hague, jointly sponsored by the Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers, his Norwegian colleague Brundtland and French President Mitterrand, was attended by high-level representatives of 24 invited industrialized and developing countries (Pallemaerts 2004: 10). In their brief f inal declara-tion, the participants called for the creation of a “new institutional au-thority” designed to protect the atmosphere (Hague Conference 1989:
principle a). More importantly, a second high-level conference was or-ganised in Noordwijk in November 1989. Delegates from 66 countries and EC Commission President Delors met to discuss, for the f irst time, exclusively the issue of climate change in the framework of an intergov-ernmental forum (Bodansky 1993: 467; Pallemaerts 2004: 12). The f inal declaration included some important concepts: f irstly, it def ined an objec-tive, namely that emissions should be reduced to “a level consistent with the natural capacity of the planet”, which should be reached “within a time frame suff icient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change” (Noordwijk Conference 1989: para. 8). Based on the idea that climate change was a “common concern of mankind”, it also called for the adoption of national action plans by all countries, yet “according to their capabilities and the means at their disposal”, which also meant that industri-alized countries should f inancially help developing countries (Noordwijk Conference 1989: para. 7, 13). Observers of the process have interpreted the latter paragraphs as a clear sign that the gap between industrialized and developing countries was beginning to open in global discussions on the issue of climate change. This was combined with a growing politicization
of the positions of the principal actors, with the developing world – due to numerical superiority – increasingly capable of aff irming its position (Bodansky 1993: 467, 2001: 28; Pallemaerts 2004: 13). Concluding the year 1989, the UNGA adopted resolution A/44/862 on “The protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind”, which reiterated what conferences of the previous years had stated, i.e. the need for designing a framework convention (UNGA 1989b: para. 12). Further, it clarif ied that parties considered the UN to be the “appropriate forum”
for negotiations on such a convention (UNGA 1989b: para. 5). With this, the decisive step in transforming climate change from a scientif ic concern into a topic framed as needing intergovernmental cooperation was seem-ingly taken (Pallemaerts 2004: 14).
1990 was marked by two major advances in terms of scientif ic knowledge about the climate regime. At its very end, the UN ultimate-ly took the issue from the hands of scientists (Chasek 2001: 124–125).
In August, the IPCC presented its f irst report including some alarming f indings about unprecedented temperature rise on the assumption that a business-as-usual scenario of continued fossil fuel combustion was followed by a majority of countries (IPCC 1990). These f indings were discussed at the Second World Climate Conference, held in Geneva in November 1990. Where its predecessor had been a purely scientif ic reunion, this conference comprised a high-level political segment, at-tended by representatives of 137 countries and the EU. Several parties, including the EU, Australia, Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Japan and Switzerland offered to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000 (Pallemaerts 2004: 16). Although these expressions of intent were welcomed, the f inal Ministerial Declaration included a more general formula, urging industrialized countries simply “to establish targets and/
or feasible national programmes” (SWCC 1990: para. 12). Further, the Declaration re-iterated the differentiation between developed countries – who “must show the way” – and the developing world that was to act according to its capacities (SWCC 1990: para. 5). The whole build-up on the topic of climate change culminated in a December 1990 UNGA reso-lution, which launched a “unique” intergovernmental negotiation pro-cess on the adoption of a framework convention (UNGA 1990: para. 1).
The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) created to this ef-fect was placed under the authority of the UN Secretary General.1 It was to deliver its f inal result by June 1992, in time for the UN Earth Summit in Rio (UNGA 1990: para. 7).
1 The set-up of the INC under UN auspices has been interpreted as a success of the de-veloping world. Many industrialized countries had preferred negotiating in technical bodies such as the WMO or UNEP (Bodansky 1993: 473–474).
Turning to the EU’s involvement in these early talks on climate change, it is f irst important to note that when the topic appeared on the agendas of policy-makers in 1988, the EU(-12)’s actor capacity was fairly limited – and this despite the fact that the “Single European Act had in-serted environmental protection policy into the EEC, and from the start provided for external action” (Eeckhout 2011: 141).2 Following a 1986 European Parliament resolution and report on the topic, the Commission issued a f irst climate-related communication in 1988, which arguably marked “the commencement of formal climate policy making” in the EU (Jordan/Rayner 2010: 53–55). In December of that same year, conclu-sions by the European Council then stated explicitly that “the Community and the Member States are determined to play a leading role in the ac-tion needed to protect the world’s environment”, especially regarding the “greenhouse effect” (European Council 1988: Annex I). In 1989, an Environment Council resolution conf irmed this desire and demanded that the EU be effectively implicated in the international negotiations on climate change (Council 1989: point 2). A March 1990 Environment Council called for a common position on climate change to underpin this ambition (Lescher 2000: 49). Member states diverged on the core of this position, namely the adoption of an emissions reduction target. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands had already adopted quantif ied tar-gets unilaterally and advocated a common European target, while the UK, despite its national target of stabilization at 1990 levels by 2005, was against taking a decision on this issue within the EC before the start of in-ternational negotiations (Jordan/Rayner 2010: 56; Lescher 2000: 50). An agreement was f inally reached under the impulsion of the Environment Commissioner and the 1990 Dublin European Council conclusion. Under the heading “the environmental imperative”, the heads of state and gov-ernment called on the EU to accept “a wider responsibility (…) to play a leading role in promoting concerted and effective action at global level”
(European Council 1990: Annex II). This broad call for greater responsi-bility was translated into a specif ic commitment when the Environment and Energy Council adopted the position that the EU should stabilize its emissions at 1990 levels by 2000, following a recommendation by the European Commission (Pallemaerts 2004: 42; Brambilla 2004: 247).
Derogations were granted to the cohesion countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland), but also to the UK (Lescher 2000: 50). While the EU had thus managed to forge a basic common position, its representation in international fora was, in the absence of clear rules, mostly guaranteed
2 Article 130r, para. 5 SEA read: “Within their respective spheres of competence, the Community and the Member States shall co-operate with third countries and with the relevant international organizations (…) without prejudice to Member States’ compe-tence to negotiate in international bodies and to conclude international agreements.”
through the activities of a limited number of member states, but also of the Commission, which was now regularly invited to international meet-ings and conferences.