EU-LAC interregional cooperation on climate mitigation : Case study of EUROCLIMA

Abstract: Climate change is currently one of the greatest challenges of our times. Due to the urgency of the issue, a cooperation on climate mitigation has been developing at different levels in order to reach reduction emission targets. In parallel, the European Union has developed interregional ties with other regions of the globe as a strategy to strengthen its power. More specifically, it has developed its relations with the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, in many fields including climate change mitigation. The interregional relationship between the European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) on climate mitigation is of interest because it concerns two crucial regions in the field of climate change: the European Union is one of the world’s largest leaders in the fight against climate change and Latin America is of the richest regions in terms of biodiversity as well as resources, yet one of the most endangered by climate change. The present thesis analyses EU-LAC interregional relations on climate mitigation. It takes a specific case study analysis of the EU-LAC EUROCLIMA programme, the largest programme for climate mitigation between the EU and LAC. The objective of the article is to investigate the extent towards which EUROCLIMA can be considered as a practical example of EU-LAC interregional cooperation on climate mitigation, from a constructivist approach. The study is based on a discourse analysis of public reports and interviews on EUROCLIMA. The results of the empirical analysis of EUROCLIMA demonstrate that the programme features the main attributes of successful EU-LAC cooperation on climate mitigation and of EU-LAC complex interregionalism. Hence, EUROCLIMA can be considered as a clear example of EU-LAC interregional cooperation on climate mitigation. The paper draws new conclusions and implications on the way to define EUROCLIMA and provides a new perspective for the scholarship on EU-LAC relations. EUROCLIMA can be specifically defined as an EU-LAC complex interregional cooperation.