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The EU and its member states face the challenge of accelerating the transition to climate neutrality and negative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in increasingly turbulent times. But the challenge of governing the climate and energy transition goes far beyond phasing out GHG emissions. Given the urgency, dynamism, complexity, contentiousness, and long-term, cross-cutting nature of the “super wicked” climate challenge, the governance of the climate transition requires sustained, comprehensive, and integrated efforts across all relevant policy fields and the whole of society. To this end, the EU needs to devise political processes, structures and institutions that empower democratic political systems in Europe to effectively respond to the climate challenge (hereinafter referred to as the EU’s “climate governance framework”). In this paper, we identify key options for enhancing the EU’s evolving climate governance framework to this end. Building on the latest scientific knowledge of relevant best practice in Europe and elsewhere, as for example reflected and acknowledged in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2022b), we review the EU’s existing climate governance framework and identify EU-level policy options for further enhancing it across the Union and its member states, while paying particular attention to key interactions, synergies. and tensions between individual governance elements.

This chapter explores the use of climate science in the courtroom. Expertise in the form of climate change science plays an indispensable role in governmental decision-making regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases. In order to make the (peer-reviewed) climate science accessible for policy-making, an important task is given to the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, reports from the IPCC – together with other scientific documents - may also be used in the courtroom. This contribution explores what role IPCC reports have played thus far in seminal court decisions in the US and Europe. Furthermore, it observes that while the IPCC will stay important for decision-making in the context of the Paris Agreement, the IPCC and its decision-making procedures have not remained uncontested in legal (and other) literature. In tandem with the important role taken or given to the IPCC, fundamental legal questions regarding the production of climate science by the IPCC have to be examined, for which the concept of “global administrative law” may be useful since it examines the legitimacy and accountability of international decision-making. If courts are indeed willing to follow statements from the IPCC or from peer reviewed articles in such a way that this amounts to standard-setting, like a specific emission pathway, the rule-making power of the executive and legislative branch will clearly become less important and may be overturned. While this can be an enormous victory for climate protection, the implied shift of power still needs to be objectively identified and discussed, particularly also in view of helping to avoid unjustified contestation of climate science.

EU environmental law and policy-making is characterised by a plurality of institutional actors. While the Commission remains a central policy-maker, EU agencies play an increasingly important role in a number of environmentally sensitive domains. Although the EEA is the decentralised agency whose mission is most evidently related to the EU environmental policy, the role of other agencies also needs to be considered. This chapter focuses on the role of EU agencies in environmental law and policy and on the way they contribute to environmental protection, by mapping the different tasks attributed to them in this respect and analysing their contribution to integrating environmental concerns in EU governance and administration.

In this chapter, the concept of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) within the European Union is discussed. This concept is based on the idea that the environment should be seen and protected as a whole. Such a holistic integrated approach lies at the heart of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IE Directive). Nevertheless, multiple limitations to IPPC can be identified in this directive as a consequence of choices made in its regulatory design, whose main pillars consist of an integrated approach, the use of best available techniques, flexibility, inspections and public participation We argue that it has to be carefully considered whether moving towards an all-inclusive integration in the IE Directive is useful and necessary, as this may lead to arbitrary permit granting, hinder judicial control, and, as a consequence, reduce legal certainty.

There is not only a long and commonly held (academic) opinion, but also an international obligation that requires the European Union to have easy access to justice for environmental nongovernmental organisations (ENGOs). However, even under heavy international pressure, the standing requirements that limit the access to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for these applicants remain in place. This chapter aims to introduce the general system of access to justice under Article 263 and Article 267 TFEU. It will be explained how the Court has a particular view on how judicial review should function. It is however likely that this system has a number of deficiencies. These deficiencies are clearly brought to light in the complaint that was raised before the Aarhus Convention’s compliance mechanism. An analysis of this procedure and its problematic outcome will be used to discuss the future for these public interest litigants.

Terwijl op EU-niveau wordt overwogen om de juridisch bindende doelen voor de reductie van broeikasgassen aan te scherpen, is het van belang aandacht te besteden aan de naleving van bestaande Europese broeikasgasreductienormen. Deze bijdrage bespreekt de Europeesrechtelijke lidstatelijke emissiereductiedoelen voor 2020 en de naleving daarvan. Nederland ligt op koers om aan de emissiereductieverplichting voor 2020 te voldoen, terwijl uit rapportages blijkt dat een fors aantal andere lidstaten in de gevarenzone verkeert. De COVID-19-crisis is echter de nare reden dat deze in moeilijkheden verkerende lidstaten waarschijnlijk toch in 2020 hun emissiereductiedoelen zullen halen. Niettemin is de gerezen situatie van een dreigend nalevingstekort een belangrijke waarschuwing voor de volgende periode tot aan 2030 waarin scherpere doelstellingen gelden – die bovendien nog mogelijk worden aangescherpt. Het gebruikmaken van door EU-regelgeving mogelijk gemaakte flexibiliteitsmechanismen met tegelijkertijd een krachtige controle en waar nodig handhaving door de Europese Commissie zullen belangrijke aandachtspunten zijn in de nabije periode tot 2030. Ook voor Nederland zal het een belangrijke beleidsvraag zijn of het gewenst dan wel nodig is om van de flexibiliteitsmechanismen gebruik te maken om naleving voor 2030 te verzekeren.