A f irst observation with regard to the Union’s inf luence attempts throughout this process concerns the negotiation context itself: the dis-cussion of the process illustrates that the foreign policy activities on cli-mate change were, despite growing politicization of the issue, very much conf ined to the UN negotiation arena.11 The decisive talks were clearly held during the AGBM sessions and COPs (Interviews EU, US repre-sentatives 5, 17). Outside events (and related inf luence attempts), like the G-7+1 summits and several bilateral or small-scale multilateral meetings between key players beyond the UN framework, may have been comple-mentary to the wider multilateral efforts, but the crucial foreign policy acts were clearly exerted under the UN negotiation track, at least until the f inal days of COP 3.12
The EU’s foreign policy acts regarding these negotiations can there-fore be analytically divided into exchanges with key partners (above all the US, but also Japan) beyond and, above all, within the UN frame-work (Interviews EU, US representatives 5, 17). Outside the UN arena, constant exchanges between climate negotiators were assured, primar-ily, by formal talks at Troika level, with the Presidency, but also other Troika members (like the UK at COP 3), playing a key role (Delreux 2008; Kanie 2003; Cass 2007). Bilateral meetings between single EU member states and other parties, such as China, Japan or Russia as well as consultations between, for instance, the UK and Australia or New Zealand also served the purpose of building conf idence, ex-plaining common positions and exchanging information (Oberthür/Ott 1999: 63–64). F inally, the EU was engaged in all major fora discuss-ing climate change at the time, includdiscuss-ing the G-7+1 and other summits (Oberthür/Ott 1999: 59–63). In the more restricted realm of the UN negotiations, the EU, represented by the Troika, met with all major delegations on a regular basis, but had particularly intense discussions with the US and Japan throughout the entire process (Interviews EU, US representatives 5, 17). While these formal and informal exchang-es proved important to bolster the f low of information, the most sig-nif icant EU foreign policy acts tended to be rather formal and take the form of written submissions to the UNFCCC secretariat and oral statements during the negotiations.
11 In this sense, the negotiations were much more restricted than they would become in the period thereafter (Interviews EU, US representative 5, 17).
12 Notable other fora that were not highlighted in the general story included the OECD, where an “Annex I Expert Group” provided an arena for discussing contentious issues (such as PMs or emissions trading), but “could not heal the divides” among countries (Oberthür/Ott 1999: 59–60).
Given their centrality to the EU’s foreign policy strategy, a brief reca-pitulation of the Union’s most striking inf luence attempts throughout the negotiations serves to unveil their key characteristics:
• AGBM 2 (30 October 1995): The EU proposes the outline of a structure for the protocol, prominently featuring PMs.
• AGBM 5 (December 1996): The EU submits an elaboration of its draft protocol structure including various types of commitments and an Annex X that would allow new parties to join the Annex I country group.
• AGBM 6 (3 March 1997): The Environment Council announces the EU’s GHG reductions target of –15% until 2010 compared to 1990 levels for three gases. This proposal is later completed through a mid-term target of –7.5% by 2005.
• BEFORE AGBM 8 (autumn 1997): The Commission recalls, in a communication, “The EU Approach to Kyoto”. Bilateral exchang-es are intensif ied.
• COP 3 (December 1997): After a rather defensive start, the EU be-comes a central player in the f inal bargain on targets and all other interlinked elements of the Protocol.
From an analytical perspective, this overview demonstrates that the range of foreign policy tools the EU employed was not very extensive. In essence, the main instruments that its inf luence attempts were based on were diplomatic. In line with the WEIS code, they can be described as “to make proposals”, but also – in the later stages – “to demand” (Wilkenfeld et al. 1980). These proposals would often be linked to dialogues, visits and conferences, which would be exploited to explain the proposals, ex-change positions, and search for commonalities. They were based mainly on conclusions by the Environment Council, which provided the nego-tiation position for the global climate talks and formed the basis for the Union’s written submissions (through the Presidency) to the UNFCCC secretariat. Occasionally, Commission communications or conclusions of the European Council would also be employed as inf luencing tools. The propositions were often not directly targeted at any actor, but remained fairly general. Hardly ever did the EU employ any other foreign policy instruments to supplement this diplomatic approach. Its proposals for tech-nology transfer and f inancing of climate mitigation or adaptation activities in developing countries, for instance, did not contain any incentives for de-veloping countries to join into mitigation efforts, even on a voluntary basis.
Several characteristic features of the Union’s main diplomatic tool – the written submissions – can be distilled from its contributions. F irst, the EU’s proposals were substantially quite detailed – unlike, at least in the f irst f ifteen months of the negotiations, the proposals of other parties – clarifying
on most issues what it had decided that it wanted the outcome of the nego-tiations to look like. In the f irst instance, the Union concentrated to a large extent on its preferred regulatory approach, with extensive proposals on policies and measures. During this stage, its aim was clearly the creation of durable structures: it wanted to impact on the design of the key features of the future climate regime in accordance with its own “command and con-trol” environmental policy tools. This approach contained a good deal of pragmatism. Until the US u-turn at COP 2, the EU had apparently thought that the Americans would never accept a new treaty with legally binding targets (Grubb et al. 1999: 54–55). It wanted thus an agreement with clearly def ined measures, which would ensure that even reductions that were not binding could realistically be achieved. After COP 2, its stated position be-came gradually broader and more actor-focused, explaining also explicitly what it expected from other groups of countries: comparable efforts from industrialized countries, and the preparedness for assuming obligations in the medium to long term from advanced developing countries (European Commission 1997). These proposals, as seen and further analysed below, would set the agenda for the later stages of the negotiations, especially regarding the discussion of targets. The degree of detail of the proposals implied that many of the EU’s positions were not very f lexible, and had seemingly not been developed with an idea of potential concessions to oth-er parties (and the corresponding intoth-ernal fall-back positions) in mind. The EU essentially posited its approach and argued for its usefulness. This indi-cates that it may have wanted (consciously or not) to engage other parties in a process of arguing during the early stages of the process, interpreting the negotiations as a sort of competition for the best, most convincing ideas.
This pattern recalls certain f indings for the UNFCCC negotiation process, during which the EU had, for a long time, attempted the same, believing that the US could be convinced of the necessity to stabilize emissions by the year 2000. However, when the other industrialized parties held back their proposals on crucial agenda items for such a long time, the EU was the f irst major party to come out with its 15% GHG reduction proposal. This proposal has been interpreted as “more apparent than real” (Jordan/Rayner 2010: 63), but it was actually both: on the one hand, it represented a sincere wish by some of the European Environment Ministers of being capable of substantially reducing emissions in this range; on the other hand, it consti-tuted a complicated position aimed at bargaining (Matsumura 2000: 18;
Cass 2007: 78; Interviews EU, US representatives 5, 17). The fact that only 10% reductions were covered by the EU’s internal burden-sharing agree-ment strongly indicates the importance of the latter interpretation. For the f irst time, the other parties – and those more reluctant to substantial reduc-tions were clearly targeted (the US, other JUSSCANNZ members) – thus received the signal that the Union was generally willing to compromise,
entering subtly into a bargaining mode. In the f inal stages of the talks, the EU multiplied such signals on other issues (e.g. emissions trading) taking on a more pragmatic stance and – again a parallel to the UNFCCC ne-gotiations – were led by the British negotiator, in this case Deputy Prime Minister Prescott, to agree to a compromise formula. Second, and linked to this, the timing of the EU’s detailed proposals was striking. The Union was, besides AOSIS, the f irst major player to make wide-reaching propos-als about the shape of a new climate agreement. This proactive approach to the negotiations became very visible when it exposed, as the f irst Annex I party, its position regarding the key issue of the Berlin Mandate, the setting of targets. This move, at a critical moment in the AGBM process, earned it “renewed prof ile and initiative” (Grubb et al. 1999: 58). Despite inf lex-ibility, the strategy of “frontloading” very detailed proposals arguably en-sured the EU an important agenda-setting role and can partially explain its inf luence on this process, as further elaborated below.
In synthesis, a clear pattern of EU inf luence attempts in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations emerges from the process trace: the Union re-lied heavily on the quality, appeal, persuasiveness and timing of formal diplomatic tools. Early in the negotiation process, it exposed a rather well- prepared and wide-reaching position, which it gradually ref ined.
Throughout the talks, it argued and reached out on the basis of this posi-tion, tending to become rather defensive in the f inal stages of the process.
The EU’s approach to multilateral negotiations and international law-making, in this case through the development of an existing legal regime, appeared thus as a unique mixture of a legal-formalistic form (tools of UN conference diplomacy) with a highly political substance (with a posi-tion centred on targets, but otherwise little “give and take”).