DeepDCarb Publications - January 2023

Global climate action requires cooperation on various levels of the political system. In the international arena high-level forums on clean energy have emerged additionally to the UNFCCC framework.

In the recent article Who takes the lead? A disaggregate analysis of the EU's engagement in the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation published in the Journal of Cleaner Production as part of the special issue The End Game: How to Achieve Carbon Neutrality we analyse the cooperation between the major economies on clean energy technologies in the frame of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM; initiated in 2010) and Mission Innovation (MI; initiated in 2015).

Building on research on the European Union's (EU) leadership in international climate politics, we concentrate on how the EU Commission and the EU member states have exerted leadership in these two organizations in the period 2013–2022 (for the CEM) and 2017–2022 (for MI), respectively. Using descriptive techniques and a cluster analysis we find that:

1. The EU Commission has been more active in MI than in the CEM. Interestingly, the EU Commission's leadership in MI even surpasses that of the United States.
2. The EU Commission has been more active than the EU member states in MI but not in the CEM.
3. Germany and the United Kingdom, together with Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark, stand out as particularly active in terms of (co-) leading workstreams.

Political implications of the study are that the EU can utilize the CEM and MI as place of dialogue on clean energy with the United Kingdom after Brexit since the United Kingdom has demonstrated ambition to lead collaboration in this context. Another remark concerns the growing leadership efforts by the United States since the electoral victory of Joe Biden. Together with the EU the United States under President Biden could spark a positive, upward-ratcheting dynamic in MI and further increase the aspiration to promote policy actions and RD&D endeavours.