Evolving Norms in the UN Climate Regime: the EU's and China's contentious interpretations of the normative principles regulating equitable and fair mitigation commitments over the course of the climate negotiations (1992 - 2020)

This thesis focuses on the normative structure of the UN climate regime, exploring the process by which specific norms of international climate governance on mitigation have diffused and evolved over time and what have been the (normative) roles of the EU and China in this evolution. On one side, the thesis investigates the process by which the norm bundle related to mitigation commitments has been formed and evolved over time. Indeed, as a consequence of the different interpretations of equity and fairness given by the involved actors, the issue of how to differentiate mitigation efforts fairly has always been central and controversial in UN climate negotiations. Due to its contentiousness, fairness in mitigation burden-sharing is a favourable field to analyse the process of norm selection, evolution, and contestation within the context of the UN climate regime. On the other side the thesis determines whether in the above-mentioned process the EU and China have been behaving as normative powers would do at certain points in time, identified as critical junctures (i.e., COP3, COP15, and COP21). In particular, as part of this empirical analysis, the thesis looks at whether the EU and China by invoking and diffusing their preferred interpretation of equity and fairness on mitigation commitments have been able to codify them in governance structures of the UN climate regime, contributing to shaping the normal in global climate politics.