Bridging the Gaps in the International Climate Change Regime through Regional Approach: The Potentials of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 on the Dimension of Energy Transition and the Paris Agreement

Abstract

The gap between the amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions being produced at the global level and the adequacy of the regulatory framework that will achieve the required reduction of the global levels, commensurate to international climate targets, is one of the many uncertainties and challenges facing the international community since the twilight of the 20th century. This is further exacerbated by another gap between the level of the energy demand/supply to the ever-increasing world population, and the number of people and communities who still lack the necessary access to electricity around the world. There is no doubt that more energy production is required for world economic growth, particularly in developing countries. This research is an attempt to identify, inter alia, what are the factors responsible for the disparities between the objective(s) of the international climate regime and the substantive provisions requiring global actions to the attainment of the objectives of the international climate change regime. The Paris Agreement and the European Union (EU) ‘energy and climate package’ serve as the reference of this research. On the assumptions that the current climate regime may be incapable of meeting the aim of the Paris Agreement, that is: “holding the rise in global temperatures to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C”; the attention is being turned to regulatory efforts at the regional and subregional levels, especially the European Union (EU), which is one of the major global emitters. The approach by the EU to operationalize the Paris Agreement into a functional legal instrument, through a regional comprehensive legislative package provides a template for analyzing the potentials of the ‘internal’ and the ‘external’ impact of the regional implementation of the global instrument.