Illusion of leadership in paris: eu's role in the process of reaching paris climate change agreement

Illusion of Leadership in Paris: EU's Role in the Process of Reaching Paris Climate Change Agreement. Main purpose of this thesis was to find the deviation between the EU self-positioning and the real placement during the Paris Climate Change summit in 2015. Paris climate change agreement is a historical treaty that legally binds countries in order to limit increase of global temperature. Due to the exclusivity and success of the agreement, the EU public discourse released several messages that led to the impression that the agreement was largely the merit of the player in question. However, after the economic crisis, changes in the global economic order, rise of the BRICS countries, China's position in the negotiations increased. Futhermore, after a new presidential election in US this player’s engagement grew as well. The first part of the thesis was designated to an overview of the prevailing research on the EU's involvement and role in the climate change negotiations. According to the latest theory, four basic criteria for determining the success of the climate change agreements were singled out. According to these criteria, the leadership in the negotiations is an essential and fundamental element. For this reason, this study focused on the reasoning of potential of EU leadership. Empirical part of the thesis attempted to confirm or refute the hypothesis that emerged from the theory. The hypothesis stated that the EU's role in the process of making Paris climate change agreement was important, but not decisive because of diminished EU leadership potential. The purpose of the second part was to review and evaluate the EU's leadership potential in relation to other major players in climate change negotiations - the US and China. Analysis was made in order to evaluate which type of leadership, structural, exemplary, cognitive or entrepreneurial, dominated in actions of each of the states. Analysis result can be concluded as following. After taking into the account all three participants it can be concluded that the potential of structural leadership mainly prevailed in US, then China and finally the EU. At the beginning of the negotiations the EU had a significant structural leadership potential, but the decrease in harmful emission levels led to the fact that world's two largest emitters - the US and China, appeared in the center of negotiations. The assessment of exemplary leadership clearly showed the dominance of the EU - the player possessed the most ambitious climate mitigation policy. Cognitive leadership potential was mainly possessed by the EU and the US, while China remained on the sidelines. Moreover, the entrepreneurial leadership was exposed the best by the United States, because the player was able to establish a significant relations with China, which led to a bilateral agreement. The last part of the study briefly reviewed Paris conference management efficiency. The sole responsibility for the organization of the summit was given to France. By applying innovative solutions, French presidency successfully coped with the negotiation process. Smooth process was a significant element contributing to the final outcome of the negotiations. Finally, it can be stated that the analysis confirmed the hypothesis, because the EU indeed lacked structural leadership. To add, it could be noticed that the EU had the advantage in other types of leadership, but the US and China are catching up rapidly - these players have their own incentives to consolidate its leading position in climate change governance