EU Climate Leadership After Paris: Rising to the Challenge

The document examines the European Union's historical leadership in climate action and the current obstacles it faces, including Brexit and the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. It argues that current policies are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature targets and suggests that ambitious climate policies could strengthen the EU's internal cohesion and international credibility.

• The European Union faces significant economic, political, and institutional hurdles to its climate leadership, with the UK's decision to leave the EU (Brexit) cited as one such manifestation.
• Existing policies are deemed inadequate for achieving the Paris Agreement's goals of limiting global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees Celsius or the more ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius target.
• The EU has the opportunity to use ambitious climate change policies to enhance the European project and restore its international credibility as a leader in climate action.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2017). EU Climate Leadership After Paris: Rising to the Challenge. https://www.sei.org/publications/eu-climate-leadership-after-paris-rising-to-the-challenge/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. EU Climate Leadership After Paris: Rising to the Challenge. 2017. https://www.sei.org/publications/eu-climate-leadership-after-paris-rising-to-the-challenge/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=EU Climate Leadership After Paris: Rising to the Challenge |date=5 October 2017 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/eu-climate-leadership-after-paris-rising-to-the-challenge/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2017climate, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{EU Climate Leadership After Paris: Rising to the Challenge}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2017}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/eu-climate-leadership-after-paris-rising-to-the-challenge/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }