The EU and Germany’s Policies on Climate Change

Abstract

The German presidency of the EU and the G8 summits since 2007 have selected energy security and the challenges of climate change as one of the most important policy issues on their agenda. In the EU, climate change is considered not just as a global environmental and ecological challenge, but is increasingly also perceived as one of the twenty-first century’s most important security threats that ‘directly threatens European interests’. The following analysis will focus on the EU’s and Germany’s achievements, but also the uncertainties and challenges of its energy-climate policy nexus and the implementation problems of the ambitious targets of its energy and climate policies. Furthermore, it will also examine the implications for global stability and human security as based on the approach ‘Freedom from Fear’. This is understood as the freedom for individuals and communities from basic insecurity and from the consequences of conflicts, where individuals and communities are deliberately targeted with impunity.