Is climate change back on EU's core agenda?

The Durban climate summit was started with the hope that a new framework would replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. But once again fierce ego clashes and inflexibility on the part of West prevented an equitable solution to climate change. In the end, countries reluctantly convinced each other of a ‘roadmap’. This roadmap pitched in aggressively by the EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegarrd called for global legal agreement till 2015, planned to come into effect in 2020. As countries refuse to budge from their individual positions, climate negotiations from now on will become tougher. In this regard, lot of hopes are pinned on the European Union to take the lead in providing an inclusive solution to climate change that can be acceptable to all parties with special focus on developing countries. The European Union has provided a sound leadership in the climate regime in the past. It has been foremost active in ratifying the Kyoto protocol. It has also been pioneer in making climate related actions like the ECCP (European Climate Change Programme), ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) and Vision 2020. Now when a post-Kyoto framework is badly needed, the Union is nowhere up to the mark. The paper will address the crucial question whether the Union can really provide leadership in the climate agenda considering its dismal performance in the previous Copenhagen, Cancun Summit and Durban summit, so to say can it resolve the climate change issue? It will also try to find out if the Union has given up its stake in the climate issue, an area which was once under its core strategic domain.