Eine anspruchsvolle Umweltpolitik stimuliert die heimische Nachfrage nach umweltfreundlichen Technologien und stärkt die Umweltindustrie. Die Bedeutung von Umweltpolitik als Technologietreiber und die damit verbundenen Wettbewerbsvorteile wurden in vielen Fallstudien herausgearbeitet und ist mittlerweile auch unter politischen und wirtschaftlichen Akteuren anerkannt (z. B. Jänicke 2008 mit weiteren Nachweisen). Deutschland und Euro-pa haben hier in vielen umweltpolitischen Handlungsfeldern eine gute Ausgangsposition, so z.B. in der Klimapolitik, der Förderung erneuerbarer Energien, bei der Luftreinhaltung oder der Abfallpolitik oder auch bei Standards für Automobile, Chemikalien oder für Energieeffizienz. Das Papier diskutiert die Frage, inwieweit die gezielte Unterstützung der Ausbreitung von ambitionierten Umweltpolitiken und Standards ein geeignetes Instrument darstellt, die internationale Nachfrage nach Umwelttechnologien zu erhöhen. Dazu wird die wissenschaftliche Literatur zum Thema analysiert und internationale Fallbeispiele aus der Praxis untersucht. Ein Überblick über deutsche Akteure und Aktivitäten im Bereich der internationalen Zusammenarbeit in der Umweltpolitik zeigt bisherige Schwerpunkte und mögliche Ansatzpunkte zur Weiterentwicklung von Aktivitäten. Abschließend wird ein Konzept von Umweltaußenpolitik skizziert, welches einen Rahmen darstellt für die verschiedenen umweltbezogenen Aktivitäten der Bundesregierung in der internationalen Zusammenarbeit.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is struggling in its attempts to address the threat of anthropogenic climate change and create an effective post-Kyoto international climate agreement. One substantial part of the problem is con-sensus decision making within the Convention, which effectively gives every party a veto over the process. Majority voting is one potential alternative which is already being dis-cussed within the UNFCCC. A comparative analysis of consensus and majority voting sug-gests that majority voting is superior in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness since it is a better consensus-builder, a speedier decision making process and provides opportuni-ties for a semi-global approach to international climate policy. The objective in this paper is to investigate how majority voting could be implemented in the UNFCCC and to consider politically feasible and effective approaches to voting arrangements for the Convention. Implementing majority voting in the Convention faces legal, political and institutional ob-stacles. While it has growing support from some states, others remain staunchly opposed, with concerns over voting on financial matters being particularly sensitive. A type of Lay-ered Majority Voting with larger majorities for financial and substantial matters is consid- ered to be the optimal approach in balancing political feasibility and effectiveness. A weighted voting system differentiated on the basis of mitigation commitments, vulnerabil-ity and population (Common but Differentiated Voting) is proposed as an ideal approach. Despite these possibilities a change in decision making will likely require a crisis to cata-lyse the necessary political will and break the current path dependency that has been built around consensus.

In this paper I discuss very recent developments in the post-2020 climate and energy policy framework of the European Union as well as their implications for the German energy transition process. In a first step, I analyze how the need for the planned modifications of the European strategy is framed. I argue that the European Commission obviously sparked off a new round in tackling a longstanding governance dilemma between European market integration and regulatory diversity among Member States regarding energy and environmental issues. In a second step, I take a closer look at the implications of these changes at the European level for the German energy transition pathway. I argue that supranational pressure to adapt national energy policies to internal market rules coincides with the dominant domestic framing of the need for market integration of renewable energies. This interplay of problem framings, on the one hand, and the discretionary power of the European Commission to control competition rules, on the other, explains the very recent instrumental shift in the German national support scheme for renewable energies. Subsequently, I debate various governance options for dealing with the implications of the proposed new European approach to energy and climate policy, both against the backdrop of the particular German way of energy transition as well as against the backdrop of general transition challenges.