Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

To mitigate the anthropogenic effects of climate change, the EU proposed and implemented the 2020 climate and energy package, which sets out three collective targets to be achieved by 2020: (1) a cut of at least 20% in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, (2) raising the share of renewable energy in the EU to at least 20%, (3) a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. Additionally, the package includes individual effort-sharing targets for memberstates to be achieved in this time. This thesis investigates how successful the EU was in making these targets a reality by 2020. It does so by evaluating the 2020 climate and energy package as a case study of international environmental regime effectiveness, focusing on compliance and goal attainment as key factors for effectiveness. In addition to answering this empirical puzzle, this thesis also investigates to what extent variation in compliance and goal attainment are correlated to member-states climate policy ambitions and aspects of state capacity. The results show that the EU has been successful in its collective effort to achieve its self-imposed targets, but it remains a puzzle to what extent the success of the energy targets can be attributed to theeffects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, the analysis shows that contrary to expectations of the literature government effectiveness has a negative effect on the compliance score of member-states, while member-states climate policy ambitions have a positive effect. This shows that differences in state capacity within the EU are not necessarily the decisive factor for compliance with EU environmental policy, but rather the political will of the member states.Additionally, this work has demonstrated the importance of further investigating whether the targets to which member-states have committed have been appropriately ambitious chosen.