Building a strong partnership

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The United States' withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change under the second Donald Trump administration, and the promotion of pro-fossil fuel policies, marks the return of climate change skepticism that could create a vacuum in global climate governance. In this context, a strong partnership between China and the European Union is crucial to promote the multilateral climate actions necessary to achieve the global climate goals. However, this partnership takes place within a complex framework influenced by geopolitical tensions, mistrust in economic and trade relations, and the political dynamics within the EU members.

Despite the differences in their political systems and economic models, both sides recognize that tackling climate change is a global imperative that requires joint action. In the fight against climate change, China and the EU have shown that they have clear long-term goals and well-defined approaches to achieving them. The EU has established a general framework, the European Green Deal, for the green transformation of the EU economy and society by 2050, while China adopted the "1+N" policy framework in 2021 which aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Both parties focus on decarbonization, increasing carbon sinks and promoting technological innovation and investment in key sectors such as energy, industry, transport and buildings. Common priorities also include accelerating the shift to alternative and cleaner energy sources, promoting the use of clean energy, reducing emissions in end-use sectors, reducing support for carbon-intensive energy production, improving energy efficiency and promoting low-carbon technologies.

Over the past two decades, China and the EU have developed several joint initiatives to tackle climate change, promote sustainability and protect the environment, implementing the EU-China Partnership on Climate Change launched in 2005.

Key initiatives include the Innovation Platform on Sustainable Urbanization, which aims to promote the long-term viability of cities by reducing consumption and waste and improving the overall well-being of people and places; the EU-China Energy Cooperation Platform, which supports the development of smart grids and the integration of renewable energy sources into energy systems. However, all these cooperation programs are only a prelude to more structured economic cooperation between the two parties, as they generally encompass only a number of limited actions, including a strategic research and innovation agenda, scoping and assessment, networking events, peer-to-peer exchanges, benchmarking and monitoring, and joint demonstration projects.

Biodiversity is also an important area of cooperation. Beijing is progressively incorporating higher environmental standards into its Belt and Road Initiative and seeking to reduce the environmental impact of its infrastructure activities, while the EU is supporting its own programs for monitoring and sustainable management of ecosystems. Cooperation has also taken place at the diplomatic level, through the negotiation of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction.

All these achievements provide a solid basis for deepening and consolidating cooperation in other areas.

Despite these positive examples, cooperation between China and the EU is not without obstacles. China still relies heavily on fossil fuels to meet its energy needs, although it should be noted that coal's share of electricity generation fell to 59.6 percent in the first half of 2024, the first time it has fallen below 60 percent. Moreover, the first decade of the BRI saw the financing of several carbon-intensive infrastructure projects, such as coal-fired power plants, only to see a reversal of this policy from 2021 onwards, when China announced at the UN General Assembly that it would stop building new coal-fired power plants overseas and instead increase investment in renewable energy, a commitment reiterated at the BRI summit in October 2023. At the same time, the EU, despite adopting ambitious climate targets, faces internal opposition from some member states. The rise of right-wing governments and political parties in Europe further complicates the situation, as they oppose environmental regulations perceived as too burdensome for national economies. One example is the call to postpone the EU's 2025 CO2 reduction targets for cars in order to protect the European automotive sector, which is struggling to keep up in the transition to electric vehicles, where China is leading the way.

A growing theme in the climate debate is the link between climate change and international security, an aspect that the Trump administration and the European right seem to be neglecting. Climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a destabilizing factor in geopolitics: rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity are exacerbating existing conflicts and creating new migration crises. Water scarcity, for example, is already a source of tension in regions such as the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, and its worsening could lead to new regional wars.

Both China and the EU recognize this link between climate and security. In the case of China, the government is investing in food security and water resource management to prevent instability internally and in areas involved in the BRI. Similarly, the EU is integrating climate change into its security and defence policies, recognizing that climate-induced migration could become a major source of instability in the Mediterranean and neighboring regions.

Climate finance is a fundamental tool to support mitigation and adaptation efforts to address climate change, but it is a point of contention. The EU favors multilateral instruments such as the Green Climate Fund, a key element of the Paris Agreement, while China prefers bilateral approaches, often linked to the BRI.

Despite this complex context, the China-EU climate partnership represents one of the few opportunities to keep the world on track to realize the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Trump administration's recent threat to impose tariffs on EU goods imported into the US could trigger a rapid rapprochement between the EU and China in the economic and trade fields, which would inevitably benefit the partnership in the fight against climate change. The success of the China-EU climate partnership will depend on the ability of both parties to overcome their differences and build a relationship based on mutual trust and shared interests.

The author is an associate professor of international law at the Department of Law and a senior research fellow at the China Center at the University of Macerata, Italy. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.