Europe and China are taking steps to strengthen ties where possible, despite a complicated relationship, as Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president assaults the frameworks that their economies and climate security rely on.
On July 24, top political leaders from both sides will meet in Beijing for the EU-China summit. This high-level meeting underscores the political imperative. But the China-EU summit in past years has mostly lacked concrete deliverables, in part due to the increasing complexity of China-EU relations.
It’s worthwhile for diplomats to identify some near-term goals to get this high-speed reconciliation underway. Ultimately, the EU and China’s strategic assessments of each other may not have changed drastically. But the man ruling the White House is a significant factor in altering the context, providing both sides with the incentive and need to make meaningful progress.
As the two sides prepare for the July summit, trade is the most prominent topic, with ongoing but challenging negotiations. While it is unclear whether consensus will be reached on trade arrangements, there is a good chance that high-level exchanges in environmental and climate areas can deliver progress. In fact, “climate change, biodiversity, and advancing the green transition” were listed as the only “areas of shared interest” in the European Council’s preview of the summit.
Despite ongoing tensions over clean tech trade, both sides still share a common interest in bolstering the global energy transition, strengthening multilateralism, and pushing back against unilateralism, isolationism, and climate denialism. The EU-China High-Level Dialogue on Environment and Climate, which concluded two weeks before the Leaders’ Summit, is a strong demonstration of common ground. The fact that these topics enjoy significant overlap in the China-EU relationship is a great strength, and that shouldn’t be ignored.
It’s also worth noting that, compared to Trump 1.0, when the cost of renewable energy was still higher than the cheapest fossil fuels in many parts of the world, today the cost incentives of the energy systems are on the side of progress and stronger deployment of climate solutions.
China issued red alerts for flood risk in late June, for the first but likely not the last time this year. Meanwhile, heatwaves are scorching Europe. As both sides enter climate disaster season, projecting extreme heat and rainfall, the urgent need for collaboration on climate issues could not be more clear.
Neither side has delivered its 2035 climate plan, known under the Paris Agreement as their nationally-determined contributions (NDCs). Better alignment on timing and the ambition level of NDCs stands out as a major opportunity to strengthen the global energy transition and bilateral ties. Over the next few weeks, alignment between China and the EU will benefit greatly from coordination on identifying important yet feasible deliverables on both sides’ agendas at multilateral fora.
The China-EU summit provides an opportunity for the highest-level political exchanges on each side’s respective climate targets, offering an important chance for leaders from both sides to clarify their ambitions and timeline.
So far, signals from China have not offered enough reassurance. Chinese policymakers have adopted a conservative approach to defining what is possible for climate action, compromising in the face of economic pressure and geopolitical tensions. Policymakers in Beijing still tend to see ambitious climate action as an economic burden, despite China’s technological and manufacturing strength in climate solutions.
This way of thinking is perhaps outdated. In fact, an ambitious NDC would boost China’s economy and earn it recognition as a responsible global power. A strong plan from China needs to feature both targets to further expand wind and solar energy and clear measures to limit coal. Together, these efforts will lead to a robust pathway for reducing emissions and keep alive the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
On the European side, the EU projects itself as a global leader when it comes to climate action. Over the last year, this image has been damaged. Inside the EU, several governments and political parties are pushing to slow down climate action and lower climate ambition. In Trumpian fashion, some want to do away with it altogether. This is further cause for alarm at such a crucial time, with the world on the brink of missing the chance to limit global warming to 1.5 C.
The EU has now started the legislative process to establish its climate target for 2040, following the publication of the European Commission’s proposal on July 2. The proposed target is a 90 percent net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, but it includes the use of “high quality” carbon credits for up to 3 percent of this target, and starting from 2036 only (meaning it won’t impact the NDC).
The EU’s climate target for 2035 will be agreed after a special Environment Council of member states on September 18. For China’s climate target, President Xi Jinping in April offered a loosely defined timeline that the 2035 target would come out before COP30, to be held in November 2025, and China remains attentive to the actions of other key players.
That puts this moment in China-EU relations at the center of the global climate effort in a year where progress on climate will be seen as a bellwether for multilateralism and the ability of the global climate process to fortify itself from unilateral attacks on science and clean tech industries. No two parties are better positioned to strengthen the pylons than China and the EU.