23. 07. 2025
AUTHOR: Anne-Sophie Cerisola
In the past 10 years, despite strong geopolitical headwinds and crises, the European Union and China have been two of the core engines of the Paris Agreement on climate change. While the United States government has already given up twice on its responsibilities, the EU and China have remained committed to delivering on the agreement’s goals.
Bilaterally, the EU and China are pursuing an active path of cooperation and joint actions on issues that are essential to the delivery of the goals of the Paris Agreement, including:
- methane and other non-CO2 gases,
- carbon markets and ETS,
- finance for adaptation and resilience,
- climate action by local authorities.
It is therefore meaningful that the leaders of the EU and China chose the Summit celebrating the 50th anniversary of their bilateral relations to recognise the Paris Agreement on its 10th anniversary. Indeed, both the EU and China greatly contributed to the Agreement’s achievements, among them:
- Ambition: The five-year “pledge-implement-take stock-improve” ratchet mechanism instituted by the Agreement is now entering its second cycle. If implemented, current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) would limit warming to 2.6°C, whereas in 2015, global mean temperature increase estimates by 2100 ranged from 3.1°C to 5.2°C. The new NDCs must now be submitted, including by the EU and China, well before COP30.
- Loss and Damage: The creation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage at COP27 in 2022 addressed this central issue. This was in no small part thanks to the EU’s decisive support, initially lonely among G7 governments.
- Decarbonisation and just transition: Entire segments of the global social and economic tissue, from cities to banks, from regions to industries, have started to decarbonise. This is led by the renewable energy sector, whose dynamism has surpassed even the most optimistic expectations. Two numbers owe much to China’s leadership: for the past five years, solar energy has provided the cheapest electricity in history; and in 2024, the share of clean energy sources in global electricity generation surpassed 40% for the first time, with renewables accounting for 32%.
Four months before COP30 in Brazil, however, a lot of responsibilities rest on the EU and China:
- In the absence of the US and the resulting uncertainty, the world needs reassurance on the willingness to move forward with ambition and conviction towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.
- Both have yet to present their own NDCs, expected to be in line with their respective commitments to reach net-zero (by 2050 for the EU and before 2060 for China).
- Both have yet to explain what they expect from COP30 in terms of:
- collective response to the NDCs (which will probably fail, again, to take us to keeping the temperature raise below 1.5C);
- implementation of the 2023 Global Stocktake decision and, for example, its paragraph 28 on the tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency, and transitioning away from fossil fuels; halting global forest loss by 2030, scaling up adaptation measures to protect and support vulnerable populations in particular;
- providing and mobilising finance to developing countries (noting many of them are now in financial distress), including from the international financial institutions and funds.
In the next months, the EU and China must continue their high-level dialogue and take the lead in supporting Brazil to ensure that COP30s delivers concrete results in particular to keep the 1.5C goal within reach through ever more ambitious NDCs and through encouraging all actors – states, private sector, civil society – to implement bold climate action.
