The EU and Climate Change in the lead up to Cancún: Impacts, Policies and Positions

On 29 November the world comes together at Cancún in Mexico to discuss the development of global frameworks to, together, deal with climate change. Looking towards that meeting, in this paper we look at what a changing climate means for the EU in terms of its environmental and security impacts, we look at what the EU is currently doing or proposes to do to mitigate or adapt to climate change and, lastly, we look at what position the EU is likely to take in the negotiations at Cancún. The article considers that the EU’s strong stance on climate change in international negotiations is fundamentally driven by the significant environmental, social and security implications of climate change for Europe and that even in the face of difficult economic circumstances the EU is unlikely to alter its strong stance at the upcoming Cancún round of negotiations.