The Insitute for European Studies at Vrije Universiteit  Brussel invites you to a policy forum on 9 November 2015, 12:00 - 14:00 entitled "European Climate Leadership and COP21: Assessing EU relations with China and India".The contours of global climate politics are shifting. Negotiations in the run-up to December’s Paris climate conference have been characterized by an unusual alignment of players. The United States and China embraced climate action through bilateral agreement and announcements. The EU is mobilizing its diplomatic capacity to push for an ambitious Paris agreement. India has come forward with its 2030 pledge but expects the outcome of COP21 to be equitable and sympathetic to the concerns of developing countries. In this Policy Forum, three speakers will reflect on the role of the EU, China, and India in global climate negotiations, in particular on the EU’s relations with and outreach to China and India.Speakers:Diarmuid Torney, Lecturer in International Relations, Dublin City UniversityPeter Wehrheim, Head of Unit, Climate Finance and Deforestation, DG CLIMAAndrei Marcu, Head of the CEPS Carbon Market Forum, Centre for European Policy Studies (tbc)Moderator:Katja Biedenkopf, Associate Research Fellow, IES & Assistant Professor, University of LeuvenDiarmuid Torney’s presentation will be based on his new book, European Climate Leadership in Question: Policies toward China and India, which is published by MIT Press. The book is the first systematic assessment of Europe’s claim to climate leadership, and analyzes the EU’s engagement with China and India on climate change. Dr. Torney will set the book’s findings in the context of broader trends in global climate politics and draw out implications for the EU and the world on the road to COP21 in Paris and beyond.