The European Commission is set to water down the EU’s 2035 de facto combustion engine ban by requiring automakers to lower their emissions by 90 percent instead of the original 100 percent, multiple officials with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO. The change effectively marks the end of the ban, giving the center-right political parties and the automotive sector a massive win after months of heavy lobbying. Under the deal, which is still being negotiated at the time of publication, automakers can sell plug-in hybrids and range extenders after 2035. But those flexibilities will be tied to automakers “offsetting” the 10 percent extra emissions by using green steel and alternative fuels. How the offsets will work and what percentage of fuels or steel will need to be consumed in production is still being negotiated. The industry argues the law banning the new sale of CO2-emitting vehicles cuts them off at the knees and makes them less able to compete against Chinese incumbents that are ahead of them on electric vehicles.  Automakers are facing further headwinds courtesy of a trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump and sluggish sales at home. Climate advocates say the Commission needs to stay the course.  “The EU is playing for time when the next game has already started. Every euro diverted into plug-in hybrids is a euro not spent on EVs while China races further ahead,” said William Todts, executive director of green NGO Transport & Environment. The deal mirrors one announced by Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, on Dec. 11. He told German media that the combustion engine ban had been overturned, with the 2035 target of 100 percent CO2 reduction cut to only 90 percent. The Financial Times was the first to report the 10 percent reduction. New details are emerging, however, about what powertrains will be allowed after 2035. In the current plan, range extenders — small combustion engines that give batteries more range — will count for a further emissions reduction than plug-in hybrids, which have both a combustion engine and an electric motor. Essentially, the scheme would give automakers more emission credits for range extenders than plug-in hybrids because they emit less CO2 than the hybrids, two officials said. The 2035 reform is part of a broader automotive package being put forward by the Commission on Tuesday that will include a new regulation on greening corporate fleets — vehicles owned or leased by companies for business purposes — and an automotive omnibus that was obtained by POLITICO. Essentially, the scheme would give automakers more emission credits for range extenders than plug-in hybrids because they emit less CO2 than the hybrids, two officials said. | Lorenzo Di Cola | Getty Images For the 2035 legislation, automakers will be allowed to pool, meaning that a brand that doesn’t meet the 90 percent target can buy credits from an automaker that over delivers. The pooling scheme is a lucrative business for all-electric manufacturers like Tesla. A separate initiative will focus on boosting small electric vehicles — a demand put forward by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address in September. Companies that produce the small cars would get a coefficient of 1.3 in the target calculations. So if a carmaker sold 10 of the small EVs, they would get the emissions credit of 13 cars. Manufacturers will have to comply with yet-to-be-defined local content requirements when creating the small EVs in order for the automaker to get the emission credit. France has long demanded that any flexibilities around the ban be tied to local content requirements — a request it put forward in October alongside Spain. The draft marks the first step in a long, politically fraught journey to becoming law. It will now go to Parliament and the EU capitals, where political groups remain divided over how far the Commission should go to rescue the automotive sector. The EPP has pushed hard to overturn the ban and the far right has campaigned on the issue, too, which could prompt yet another alliance between the two in Parliament to push to further weaken the law. EU capitals also have competing ideas. Spain wants the target to remain unchanged, while Germany is balking at France’s push for “Buy European” requirements, over fears it will spark a global trade war with the U.S. and China.

BRUSSELS — The EU aims to seal a free-trade agreement with India by late January instead of the end of the year as initially envisaged, Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič told POLITICO. “The plan is that, most probably in the second week of January, that [Indian Commerce Minister] Piyush Goyal would come here” for another round of negotiations, Šefčovič said in an interview on Monday. “There is a common determination that we should do our utmost to get to the [free-trade agreement] and use every possible day until the Indian national day,” he added. India celebrates its annual Republic Day on Jan. 26, and both Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President António Costa have been invited as guests of honor. Von der Leyen and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged in February to clinch the free-trade agreement (FTA) by the end of the year — something even they recognized would be a steep target. But a number of issues keep gumming up the works, Šefčovič said, including that India is linking its objections to the EU’s planned carbon border tax and its steel safeguard measures with the EU’s own demand to reduce its tariffs on cars. Šefčovič traveled again to New Delhi last week in an effort to clear major hurdles to conclude the EU’s negotiations with the world’s most populous country. “The ideal scenario would be — like we announced with Indonesia — that we completed the political negotiations on the FTA,” Šefčovič said. “That would be my ideal scenario, but we are not there yet.” The EU and Indonesia concluded their agreement in September. “It’s extremely, extremely challenging,” he said, adding: “The political ambition of our president and the prime minister to get this done this year was absolutely crucial for us to make progress.”

A fair, fast and competitive transition begins with what already works and then rapidly scales it up.  Across the EU commercial road transport sector, the diversity of operations is met with a diversity of solutions. Urban taxis are switching to electric en masse. Many regional coaches run on advanced biofuels, with electrification emerging in smaller applications such as school services, as European e-coach technologies are still maturing and only now beginning to enter the market. Trucks electrify rapidly where operationally and financially possible, while others, including long-haul and other hard-to-electrify segments, operate at scale on HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) or biomethane, cutting emissions immediately and reliably. These are real choices made every day by operators facing different missions, distances, terrains and energy realities, showing that decarbonization is not a single pathway but a spectrum of viable ones.  Building on this diversity, many operators are already modernizing their fleets and cutting emissions through electrification. When they can control charging, routing and energy supply, electric vehicles often deliver a positive total cost of ownership (TCO), strong reliability and operational benefits. These early adopters prove that electrification works where the enabling conditions are in place, and that its potential can expand dramatically with the right support. > Decarbonization is not a single pathway but a spectrum of viable ones chosen > daily by operators facing real-world conditions. But scaling electrification faces structural bottlenecks. Grid capacity is constrained across the EU, and upgrades routinely take years. As most heavy-duty vehicle charging will occur at depots, operators cannot simply move around to look for grid opportunities. They are bound to the location of their facilities.  The recently published grid package tries, albeit timidly, to address some of these challenges, but it neither resolves the core capacity deficiencies nor fixes the fundamental conditions that determine a positive TCO: the predictability of electricity prices, the stability of delivered power, and the resulting charging time. A truck expected to recharge in one hour at a high-power station may wait far longer if available grid power drops. Without reliable timelines, predictable costs and sufficient depot capacity, most transport operators cannot make long-term investment decisions. And the grid is only part of the enabling conditions needed: depot charging infrastructure itself requires significant additional investment, on top of vehicles that already cost several hundreds of thousands of euros more than their diesel equivalents.  This is why the EU needs two things at once: strong enablers for electrification and hydrogen; and predictability on what the EU actually recognizes as clean. Operators using renewable fuels, from biomethane to advanced biofuels and HVO, delivering up to 90 percent CO2 reduction, are cutting emissions today. Yet current CO2 frameworks, for both light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty trucks, fail to recognize fleets running on these fuels as part of the EU’s decarbonization solution for road transport, even when they deliver immediate, measurable climate benefits. This lack of clarity limits investment and slows additional emission reductions that could happen today. > Policies that punish before enabling will not accelerate the transition; a > successful shift must empower operators, not constrain them. The revision of both CO2 standards, for cars and vans, and for heavy-duty vehicles, will therefore be pivotal. They must support electrification and hydrogen where they fit the mission, while also recognizing the contribution of renewable and low-carbon fuels across the fleet. Regulations that exclude proven clean options will not accelerate the transition. They will restrict it.  With this in mind, the question is: why would the EU consider imposing purchasing mandates on operators or excessively high emission-reduction targets on member states that would, in practice, force quotas on buyers? Such measures would punish before enabling, removing choice from those who know their operations best. A successful transition must empower operators, not constrain them.  The EU’s transport sector is committed and already delivering. With the right enablers, a technology-neutral framework, and clarity on what counts as clean, the EU can turn today’s early successes into a scalable, fair and competitive decarbonization pathway.  We now look with great interest to the upcoming Automotive Package, hoping to see pragmatic solutions to these pressing questions, solutions that EU transport operators, as the buyers and daily users of all these technologies, are keenly expecting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is IRU – International Road Transport Union  * The ultimate controlling entity is IRU – International Road Transport Union  More information here.

BERLIN — The leaders of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative-led coalition on Friday announced accords on key issues that had divided his government in recent weeks. The internal disagreements — over pension reforms and a phaseout of the combustion engine — had turned into a test of the viability of Merz’s relatively weak and ideologically divergent coalition government. The new agreements, reached after a night of long negotiations, may have staved off a larger crisis of confidence in Merz’s government. Members of Merz’s coalition sought to portray the agreements as evidence that the government is functioning smoothly. “Sometimes the image that people paint — saying that everything is stuck and so on — doesn’t match what I experienced yesterday,” said Lars Klingbeil, the leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which governs in coalition with Merz’s conservative alliance. “We really did push forward far-reaching changes for this country in constructive debates.” The agreements announced Friday revolve around a pension package lawmakers are set to vote on in December that a faction of Merz’s own conservatives had railed against, as well as a deal on Germany’s position on the EU’s push to phase out the combustion engine. In the case of the pension reform, Merz sought to placate conservative rebels by vowing to take on a second, more far-reaching set of pension system reforms that would involve implementing the recommendations of an expert commission as early as next year. Previously, the coalition had agreed on a lengthier timeframe. “There is now a firm agreement,” Merz said in view of the immediate pension reform package set to go for a vote. “We will come to a decision next week, and it is not just a gut feeling, but a well-founded hope, based on the discussions we had this morning, that our colleagues now see that we are really serious about these reforms and that we are now going down this path together.” With regard to EU plans to ban carbon-emitting engines from 2035, Merz said he would write a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday to urge Brussels to apply extensive exemptions — including on dual-motor vehicles, plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles with range extenders and “highly efficient” combustion engines. That announcement signaled that the SPD has effectively backed off its previous support for EU green regulations for cars. “We ask the Commission, in a comprehensive sense, to adapt and correct the regulations for mobility,” said Merz. “This concerns in particular the compatibility of competitiveness — the industrial competitiveness of the European automotive industry — with the demands we place on climate protection.” Merz’s coalition has a majority of just 12 votes in the Bundestag, making his government vulnerable to even modest defections in the ranks. Conservative Bavarian premier Markus Söder on Friday signaled satisfaction with the agreements. “Everything we did yesterday is good for Germany, good for the economy, and bad for radicals,” he said in view of the surging far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. “They are waiting outside the door for us to fail together. That is their great hope, that we will fail.”

BRUSSELS — The far right last week broke through the firewall in the European Parliament and is now looking to flex its muscles again to secure a wider set of goals.   Next on the target list: Deporting more migrants, reversing a ban on the combustion engine, new rules on gene-edited crops, and even more red tape reductions for businesses. After decades of being sidelined by mainstream political parties, the far right scored a major victory last week when the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) ditched its traditional centrist allies and pressed ahead with plans to cut green rules for businesses that received the backing of lawmakers on the right. Now that the cordon sanitaire against the far right “has fallen,” there will be space for a right-wing majority to pass legislation “when it comes to competitiveness, in some areas of the Green Deal where they want to scale down the targets or the burdens for the businesses,” Anders Vistisen, chief whip for the far-right Patriots group, told POLITICO.   There’s dispute over how much cooperation actually took place last week, however. The EPP says it did not — and never will — negotiate directly with far-right groups. Instead, the EPP insists it merely puts forward its position, which may or may not be supported by others. “It is a lie that we negotiated with them,” EPP spokesperson Daniel Köster said following the green rules vote, after MEPs from the Patriots claimed there were formal compromises and negotiations between both parties. Yet the Patriots argue that EPP lawmakers, behind the scenes and at committee level, discreetly consult with their right-wing counterparts on areas where they have overlapping priorities. “They coordinate with us quite often on these files,” Vistisen said, “but it is becoming a little bit ridiculous and silly that they don’t just want to own up to it.” The extent of cooperation largely depends on which nationality the center-right lawmakers are from, according to the Patriots. “On a technical level we work constructively with almost all delegations, except with the German EPP,” Roman Haider, top Patriots MEP in the transport committee, told POLITICO, echoing comments from his colleague Paolo Borchia, a member of the industry and energy committee, who said only some national EPP delegations are open to talking. “Cooperation with the German EPP is practically impossible. They refuse any professional interaction with us,” said Haider. For many years, the German center-right has opposed co-operation with the far-right because of the country’s Nazi past. IT’S NOT OVER FOR THE CENTER Any further collaboration has clear boundaries — after all, many far-right lawmakers want to tear the EU down. The EPP also still needs the centre to pass a majority of files, such as the long-term EU budget. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images “In these issues for sure we are closer” on the right side of the Parliament, Procaccini said. He believes the cordon sanitaire, which kept the far right from power, is not dead, but that the first steps in tearing it down have been taken, and parts of the EPP are ready to openly work with the right-wing side of the hemicycle. Liberal and Socialist lawmakers point out the Patriots often coordinate closely with the ECR, which then presents their position to the EPP. According to a parliamentary official, granted anonymity to speak freely, the ECR acts as a “Trojan horse” for the Patriots to circumvent the cordon sanitaire. Asked about future deals with the far right, EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo said: “We are fully committed to working with all our platform partners [Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew] and they know our guiding principle is content, content, content.” Vistisen also acknowledged that, while lawmakers from the Patriots are ready to sit at the table and negotiate on all things related to deregulation and migration, the EPP continues to try to find compromises with the center. “It’s also a question of how many times the EPP wants to look ridiculous in this attempt to pretend that the central majority is the one that can be used to deregulate,” said Vistisen. He added that the EPP, as the Parliament’s biggest force, has the leverage to do whatever it wants and that “the only real negotiating strength that the Socialists have left” is calling a motion of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced — and comfortably survived — three such motions this year, brought by the far right and the far left. TOUGHER ON MIGRATION One major area where the far-right is hoping to lure the EPP into its arms is migration. In December, the Parliament is expected to vote on a new bill on “safe” non-EU countries to which member states could deport migrants, even if they are not originally from there, which the Patriots hope will be passed with a right-wing majority. They are already claiming that the price of securing their votes a second time will be higher. “We know that the EPP are struggling very much to get liberals and social democrats to play ball,” said Vistisen. “If they want to strike a deal with us, it has to be compromise amendments signed by ECR, EPP and Patriots. That is going to be a testing ground for whether the EPP publicly will make policy with us.” The right-wing majority could find common ground on a new deportations regulation proposed by the Commission in March, a key bill for von der Leyen as she seeks to appease calls from across the bloc for tougher migration policies. The lead negotiators on the file from ECR, Patriots, and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group want to pull the EPP away from the center and pass a tougher version of the bill. “In terms of cooperation on the right, what I’ve heard thus far is that both the Patriots and ECR and ESN, but also EPP, are very much on the same line on a great number of issues,” Patriots’ lead negotiator Marieke Ehlers told POLITICO. Ehlers said she is in touch with her EPP counterpart, François-Xavier Bellamy, whose national party, Les Républicains, is advocating tougher migration policies in France.   Fabrice Leggeri, a Patriots MEP, also said that “there are talks or exchanges of views between Patriots for Europe and the EPP”. Bellamy did not respond to a request for comment. CUT, CUT, CUT The European Commission may have found a new ally in its simplification agenda, with right-wing and far-right groups in Parliament eager to tear down policy in the name of cutting bureaucracy and giving power back from Brussels to national capitals. Two of the most explosive files where the right-wing majority could team up are in the automotive sector, as the EPP, pushed by Germany, seeks to slash regulations it says are strangling the car industry. The Commission is set to put forward in December a revision of what is a de facto ban on the combustion engine by 2035, alongside a measure that could set an electric vehicle target for company cars and leasing companies. In Parliament, the EPP could kill both files with the help of the far right. Straight after winning the most seats in the 2024 election, EPP chief Manfred Weber told POLITICO that his group would overturn the 2035 combustion engine ban. The far-right has also made this a major campaign talking point, with the Czech Republic’s Motorist Party basing its entire platform on the issue. The Greens, the Socialists & Democrats and Renew don’t have a unified position on the ban, making things even easier for the EPP and far right to team up. “If the German EPP wants to stand by one of its core pre-election promises, namely ending the phase-out of the combustion engine, then they will have no choice but to work with us,” said Patriots MEP Haider. The digital omnibus, presented by the Commission on Wednesday, is also a potential area where the EPP and Socialists could fail to agree on a way forward, opening the door for a right-wing majority. The bill is being pitched by the Commission as a way to simplify the EU’s digital laws to make life easier for European companies. But the proposal put forward by the Commission on Wednesday seeks extensive changes to the EU’s data protection regulation (GDPR), many to the benefit of AI developers, which the socialists and liberals have said they will block. FARMING TARGETS The right-wing dynamic is also playing out in the talks on Europe’s new rules on gene-edited crops, where exhausted EPP negotiators are quietly weighing far-right votes as a fallback option to break a months-long Parliament deadlock. Italian right-wing lawmakers from the ECR and Patriots could end up delivering the majority needed to push a compromise through — a prospect left-wing MEPs say would result in a deal far too weak to protect the interests of small producers, consumers and the environment. And the next Common Agricultural Policy, the EU’s vast farm-subsidy program, could shift even more dramatically if pushed through with far-right backing. Instead of the slow trend toward stricter environmental and climate obligations, the new coalition arithmetic could deliver a CAP with fewer strings attached, looser oversight and even weaker green conditions, which have been long-standing wishes for both the EPP and far-right groups.

BRUSSELS — The Dutch government on Wednesday halted its decision to seize control of the Netherlands-based, Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia. The Netherlands effectively took control of Nexperia at the end of September, after concerns that Dutch technological know-how was leaking to China, in a move that threatened relations between Beijing and The Hague. Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday that the controversial order, based on a 1952 law, will now be suspended. He cited diplomatic progress with China, in ensuring the supply of chips to Europe. Even Nexperia chips manufactured in Europe are rerouted to China for packaging. “We are positive about the measures already taken by the Chinese authorities to ensure the supply of chips to Europe and the rest of the world,” Karremans said in a statement. In parallel with the Netherlands taking control of Nexperia, both the U.S. and China imposed export controls on the company, disrupting the flow of critical chips to carmakers. The Chinese restrictions were aimed at Nexperia China, a key player in the company’s supply chain; while the U.S. extended earlier restrictions on Nexperia owner Wingtech to its subsidiary. The Chinese side made “a commitment to ensure the resumption of trade from Nexperia’s facilities in China” as part of a larger trade deal with the U.S. earlier this month, the Dutch said in a fact sheet as they moved to quell the diplomatic furor after claiming a win on the continued flow of critical chips. Under the original order, the Dutch government seized broad powers over major decisions that affected the company’s production capacity, intellectual property, and its continuity and future.

BELÉM, Brazil — The Trump administration slammed the door on clean energy. China is sending the message it’s open for business. The signs are not hard to find in the sweltering, dimly lit convention center in the Amazon where delegates from nearly 200 countries are debating the Earth’s future. China’s section of the United Nations climate summit’s main hall features 5-foot-tall poster boards boasting of the country’s battery and electrical projects, from Egypt to Indonesia to Brazil. Corporate “partners” listed on the back wall include CATL, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric car batteries. BYD, the crown jewel of China’s world-leading electric vehicle empire, is an official sponsor of the summit, as is fellow Chinese electric carmaker GWM. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping’s personal brand is on display at the U.N. gathering, known as COP30, which is scheduled to end Friday. Visitors to the Chinese pavilion can find shrink-wrapped copies of books collecting his writings and speeches. Meanwhile, the United States is absent from the summit for the first time ever, as President Donald Trump disavows any participation in addressing a climate crisis that he calls a “hoax.” That’s not just a setback for the planet, climate supporters say. They say it also symbolizes a self-inflicted economic threat, as the U.S. abandons the growing worldwide market for EVs, solar panels, wind turbines and other clean technologies — and cedes it to China. “It’s not about electric power. This is about economic power,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the few prominent American politicians at the summit, during a press conference here last week. He said Trump “simply doesn’t understand how enthusiastic President Xi is today that the Trump administration is nowhere to be found at COP30.” China does not yet show any signs that it’s trying to fill the role the U.S. has sometimes played at the annual climate talks: joining with the EU in pushing for all countries to make more ambitious climate commitments. While it has publicly lamented the U.S. exit from the U.N. dialogue, China still describes itself as a developing country and has proposed only modestly ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals for its own economy. The Chinese are an undeniably major presence in Belém, however — Beijing’s 789 delegates make up the second-largest national contingent at the summit, behind the 3,805 people representing the host country, Brazil, and just ahead of Nigeria, according to an independent analysis of U.N. records. The official U.S. delegation has consisted solely of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who said the State Department set up impediments to his two-day visit that ended Saturday. Trump’s hostility to clean energy is a turnaround from former President Joe Biden’s administration, which pursued big-spending green policies — backed by protectionist tax rules that irked allies in Europe — in an attempt to compete with Chinese dominance. Some developing countries had welcomed Biden’s assertiveness, saying it offered an alternative to the onerous conditions that often come from accepting Chinese infrastructure and energy assistance. But that option is rapidly fading after Trump signed a Republican-backed law stripping away Biden’s green energy subsidies. “Most of the equipment, we are buying from China,” said an official from an East African government who was granted anonymity to avoid retribution from the Trump administration. “The market has been broken. Under Biden, people were motivated to buy things from the U.S.” Others attending the summit said they believe Trump’s policies will eventually leave the U.S. itself dependent on China as the global energy market shifts to cleaner products. That trend could hollow out the U.S. industrial core, said Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee that advises the U.K. government. “It won’t be long before we have a queue of American governors begging BYD to set up electric car factories in the States,” Topping said. FOSSIL FUELS NOT DEAD YET Trump is articulating a starkly different vision: supplying the world’s growing energy demands with U.S. fossil fuels. He has backed up his talk with action, including using trade threats to undermine international climate agreements and pressure countries to buy more American oil and natural gas. The approach seizes on the fact that the U.S. is the world’s top oil and gas producer, a role it was already using for geopolitical advantage during the Biden era. Trump and his aides maintain that switching to green energy sources would only strengthen China’s stranglehold on wind, solar, battery, electric vehicle and rare earth supply chains. “President Trump wasted no time reversing Joe Biden’s Green New Scam, which significantly contributed to the worst inflation crisis in modern American history, drove up energy prices across the country, and stifled economic growth,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “By unleashing American energy, we are strengthening our grid stability, making energy affordable for families and businesses, and protecting our national security.” The White House’s stance contains an inherent bet — that the world is not on the verge of a dramatic pivot to clean energy. “You will hear people go, ‘Well, the U.S. is peddling fossil fuels, and the Chinese are pushing renewables,’” said George David Banks, an international climate aide during Trump’s first term. “Well, yeah, that’s because that’s what we have, and that’s what they have.” Trump’s vision of a future flush with fossil fuels got some validation last week from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, whose recent track record of projecting massive increases in green energy has made it a target of conservatives in Washington. The IEA’s newest forecast includes a much different scenario based on nations’ existing laws that predicts worldwide oil and gas consumption will keep growing through 2050. But the IEA report also includes an alternative scenario — accounting for policies that countries plan to adopt — which envisions a future of rising renewable energy deployment, with fossil fuel use peaking before 2030. The energy think tank Ember said Thursday that wind and solar power expanded quickly enough during the first three quarters of 2025 to meet all the world’s new power demands, and it projected that fossil fuel power generation will not increase this year for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic. A pledge that countries made at the 2023 U.N. climate summit to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 appears within reach, Ember said. Wagering the United States’ economic future on the continued dominance of fossil fuels is foolish, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview in Belém. “It’s a tragedy that Donald Trump has shot the U.S. economy in both feet and hobbled our ability to compete more effectively with China,” Gore said, pointing to Ember’s data showing that green technology exports from China exceed the value of all fossil fuel exports from the U.S. “One sector is an appreciating asset, the other is a diminishing asset, and the U.S. is on the wrong side of that equation.” During the two days of world leaders’ speeches preceding this month’s summit, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang took a veiled shot at Trump’s trade and clean energy policies. “China is ready to work with all parties to unswervingly promote green and low-carbon development,” he said. ‘LARGE INVESTMENTS FIRST’ The United States still has a big footprint at COP30, of course — even if the federal government doesn’t. U.S. companies such as GE Vernova, Baker Hughes, Citibank and Bank of America attended the summit, noted Marty Durbin, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. He said those businesses will pursue clean energy projects regardless of who occupies the White House or whether the president sends anyone to the talks. “Are we winning in that race?” Durbin said before a slight pause. “We’re in the race. And we’re going to continue to be part of that.” But others said they believe Trump’s policies will leave the U.S. in the lurch. While some foreign clean energy companies have exited the U.S. as an immediate response to Trump’s policy reversals, they will avoid the country altogether in the medium and long terms “if you cannot trust in it,” said Anne Simonsen, climate policy head of the business group Danish Industry. At the same time, China is going all in. China has poured huge direct investments into building clean technology and electric vehicle factories in emerging economies. In Brazil, Chinese investment in the electricity sector last year spiked 115 percent to $1.43 billion, with 69 percent of total Chinese-backed projects consisting of green energy and sustainability, according to the Brazil-China Business Council. Rich and poor nations have benefited from Chinese oversupply to buy cut-rate gear to meet clean energy goals. That approach and Chinese investments have transformed economies, said André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, president of the COP30 summit. China “added the elements that I believe were missing” from the world’s green energy transition, Corrêa do Lago said Nov. 10 at a press conference. “One of them is scale. The other is technology. And the other is the fact that as a developing country, it needs to bring solutions that are affordable to more people.” But he acknowledged in a separate interview with POLITICO that while China’s gusher of less-expensive technology could help address climate change more quickly, relying on one supplier creates other complications. China is “indisputably” the leader in all green technology, much of which is high quality, said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy and chief negotiator. He said U.S. automakers are “shit-scared” that they won’t be able to catch up with Chinese models, a worry that Newsom also espoused in several public comments. As an economist by trade, Monterrey Gómez said he too worries about the world relying so much on one supplier. Still, he said he sees no major alternative at the moment. “They did fast investments, large investments first,” he said. “That’s why they’re benefiting from this.” Sara Schonhardt contributed to this report from Belém, Brazil.

BELÉM, Brazil — United Nations climate summits have for years ended with bold promises to stave off global warming. But those commitments often fade when nations go home. Three years ago, in a resort city on the Red Sea, delegates from nearly 200 countries approved what they hailed as a historic fund to help poorer nations pay for climate damages — but it’s at risk of running dry. A year later, negotiations a few miles from Dubai’s gleaming waterfront achieved the first-ever worldwide pledge to turn away from fossil fuels — but production of oil and natural gas is still rising, a trend championed by the new administration in Washington. That legacy is casting a shadow over this year’s conference near the mouth of the Amazon River, which the host, Brazil, has dubbed a summit of truth. Days after the gathering started last week, nations were still sorting out what to do with contentious issues that have typically held up the annual negotiations. As the talks opened, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the world must “fight” efforts to deny the reality of climate change — decades after scientists concluded that people are making the Earth hotter. That led one official to offer a grim assessment of global efforts to tackle climate change, 10 years after an earlier summit produced the sweeping Paris Agreement. “We have miserably failed to accomplish the objective of this convention, which is the stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy and lead negotiator, during an interview at the conference site in Belém, Brazil. “Additional promises mean nothing if you didn’t achieve or fulfill your previous promises,” he added. It hasn’t helped that the U.S. is skipping the summit for the first time, or that President Donald Trump dismisses climate change as a hoax and urged the world to abandon efforts to fix it. But Trump isn’t the only reason for stalled action. Economic uncertainty, infighting and political backsliding have stymied green measures in both North America and Europe. In other parts of the world, countries are embracing the economic opportunities that the green transition offers. Many officials in Belém point to signs that progress is underway, including the rapid growth of renewables and electric vehicles and a broader understanding of both the world’s challenges and the means to address them. “Now we talk about solar panels, electric cars, regenerative agriculture, stopping deforestation, as if we have always talked about those things,” said Ana Toni, the summit’s executive director. “Just in one decade, the topic changed totally. But we still need to speed up the process.” Still, analysts say it’s become inevitable that the world’s warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius since the dawn of the industrial era, breaching the target at the heart of the Paris Agreement. With that in mind, countries are huddling at this month’s summit, known as COP30, with the hope of finding greater alignment on how to slow rising temperatures. But how credible would any promises reached in Brazil be? Here are five pledges achieved at past climate summits — and where they stand now: MOVING AWAY FROM FOSSIL FUELS The historic 2023 agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels, made at the COP28 talks in Dubai, was the first time that nearly 200 countries agreed to wind down their use of oil, natural gas and coal. Though nonbinding, that commitment was even more striking because the talks were overseen by the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company. Just two years later, fossil fuel consumption is on the rise, despite rapid growth of wind and solar, and many of the world’s largest oil and gas producers plan to drill even more. The United States — the world’s biggest economy, top oil and gas producer and second-largest climate polluter — is pursuing a fossil fuel renaissance while forsaking plans to shift toward renewables. The president of the Dubai summit, Sultan al-Jaber, said at a recent energy conference that while wind and solar would expand, so too would oil and gas, in part to meet soaring demand for data centers. Liquefied natural gas would grow 65 percent by 2050, and oil will continue to be used as a feedstock for plastic, he said. “The exponential growth of AI is also creating a power surge that no one anticipated 18 months ago,” he said in a press release from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., where he remains managing director and group CEO. The developed world is continuing to move in the wrong direction on fossil fuels, climate activists say. “We know that the world’s richest countries are continuing to invest in oil and gas development,” said Bill Hare, a climate scientist who founded Climate Analytics, a policy group. “This simply should not be happening.” The Paris-based International Energy Agency said last week that oil and gas demand could grow for decades to come. That statement marked a reversal from the group’s previous forecast that oil use would peak in 2030 as clean energy takes hold. Trump’s policies are one reason for the pivot. Still, renewables such as wind and solar power are soaring in many countries, leading analysts to believe that nations will continue to shift away from fossil fuels. How quickly that will happen is unknown. “The transition is underway but not yet at the pace or scale required,” said a U.N. report on global climate action released last week. It pointed to large gaps in efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and abate methane pollution. Lula opened this year’s climate conference by calling for a “road map” to cut fossil fuels globally. It has earned support from countries such as Colombia, Germany, Kenya and the United Kingdom. But it’s not part of the official agenda at these talks, and many poorer countries say what they really need is funding and support to make the shift. TRIPLE RENEWABLE ENERGY, DOUBLE ENERGY EFFICIENCY This call also emerged from the 2023 summit, and was considered a tangible measure of countries’ progress toward achieving the Paris Agreement’s temperature targets. Countries are on track to meet the pledge to triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030, thanks largely to a record surge in solar power, according to energy think tank Ember. It estimates that the world is set to add around 793 gigawatts of new renewable capacity in 2025, up from 717 gigawatts in 2024, driven mainly by China. “If this pace continues, annual additions now only need to grow by around 12 percent a year from 2026 to 2030 to reach tripling, compared with 21 percent originally needed,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s chief analyst. “But governments will need to strengthen commitments to lock this in.” The pledge to double the world’s energy efficiency by 2030, by contrast, is a long way behind. While efficiency improvements would need to grow by 4 percent a year to reach that target, they hit only 1 percent in 2024. ‘LOSS AND DAMAGE’ FUND When the landmark fund for victims of climate disasters was established at the 2022 talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, it offered promise that billions of dollars would someday flow to nations slammed by hurricanes, droughts or rising seas. Three years later, it has less than $800 million — only a little more than it had in 2023. Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, excoriated leaders this month for not providing more. Her rebuke came little more than a week after Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever seen in the Atlantic, swept across the Caribbean. “All of us should hold our heads down in shame, because having established this fund a few years ago in Sharm El-Sheikh, its capital base is still under $800 million while Jamaica reels from damage in excess of $7 billion, not to mention Cuba or the Bahamas,” she said. Last week, the fund announced it was allocating $250 million for financial requests to help less-wealthy nations grapple with “damage from slow onset and extreme climate-induced events.” The fund’s executive director, Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, said the call for contributions was significant but also a reminder that the fund needs much more money. Richard Muyungi, chair for the African Group of Negotiators and Tanzania’s climate envoy, said he expects additional funds will come from this summit, though not the billions needed. “There is a chance that the fund will run out of money by next year, year after next, before it even is given a chance to replenish itself,” said Michai Robertson, a senior finance adviser for the Alliance of Small Island States. GLOBAL METHANE PLEDGE Backed by the U.S. and European Union, this pledge to cut global methane emissions 30 percent by 2030 was launched four years ago at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, sparking a wave of talk about the benefits of cutting methane, a greenhouse gas with a relatively short shelf life but much greater warming potential than carbon dioxide. “The Global Methane Pledge has been instrumental in catalyzing attention to the issue of methane, because it has moved from a niche issue to one of the critical elements of the climate planning discussions,” said Giulia Ferrini, head of the U.N. Environment Program’s International Methane Emissions Observatory. “All the tools are there,” she added. “It’s just a question of political will.” Methane emissions from the oil and gas sector remain stubbornly high, despite the economic benefits of bringing them down, according to the IEA. The group’s latest methane tracker shows that energy-based methane pollution was around 120 million tons in 2024, roughly the same as a year earlier. Despite more than 150 nations joining the Global Methane Pledge, few countries or companies have devised plans to meet their commitments, “and even fewer have demonstrated verifiable emissions reductions,” the IEA said. The European Union’s methane regulation requires all oil and gas operators to measure, report and verify their emissions, including importers. And countries and companies are becoming more diligent about complying with an international satellite program that notifies companies and countries of methane leaks so they can repair them. Responses went from just 1 percent of alerts last year to 12 percent so far in 2025. More work is needed to achieve the 2030 goal, the U.N. says. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have pressured the EU to rethink its methane curbs. Barbados and several other countries are calling for a binding methane pact similar to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 agreement that’s widely credited with saving the ozone layer by phasing out the use of harmful pollutants. That’s something Paris Agreement architect Laurence Tubiana hopes could happen. “I’m just in favor of tackling this very seriously, because the pledge doesn’t work [well] enough,” she said. CLIMATE FINANCE In 2009, wealthy countries agreed to provide $100 billion annually until 2025 to help poorer nations deal with rising temperatures. At last year’s climate talks in Azerbaijan, they upped the ante to $300 billion per year by 2035. But those countries delivered the $100 billion two years late, and many nations viewed the new $300 billion commitment with disappointment. India, which expressed particular ire about last year’s outcome, is pushing for new discussions in Brazil to get that money flowing. “Finance really is at the core of everything that we do,” Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s climate envoy, told POLITICO’s E&E News. But he also recognizes that governments alone are not the answer. “We cannot say finance must only come from the public sector.” Last year’s pledge included a call for companies and multilateral development banks to contribute a sum exceeding $1 trillion by 2035, but much of that would be juiced by donor nations — and more countries would need to contribute. That is more important now, said Jake Werksman, the EU’s lead negotiator. “As you know, one of the larger contributors to this process, the U.S., has essentially shut down all development flows from the U.S. budget, and no other party, including the EU, can make up for that gap,” he said during a press conference. Zack Colman and Zia Weise contributed to this report from Belém, Brazil.

BERLIN — Germany’s governing parties have agreed on a fresh compromise for revamping military service, after an earlier political deal was derailed last month. The new agreement, finalized Wednesday night by senior lawmakers from the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, marks the coalition’s second attempt to settle one of the country’s most contentious defense reforms.  The earlier draft collapsed after Defense Minister Boris Pistorius intervened to halt a model that relied on automatic lottery triggers to fill personnel gaps. That sparked a wider debate over how far Germany should go in compelling young people to serve. The newly negotiated compromise, released Thursday morning, takes a different path. It introduces mandatory registration and medical screening, but makes any move toward compulsory service dependent on a separate parliamentary decision — a political middle ground. Under the new plan, all 18-year-olds will be formally registered for service, with men required to complete a compulsory questionnaire about their fitness and willingness to serve. In a significant shift, the parties agreed to reinstate mandatory medical examinations for male 18-year-olds starting with those born in 2008, giving the government early visibility into who could serve if needed. But the real compromise lies in the next step. Instead of automatically activating call-ups when volunteer numbers fall short — the mechanism that fueled political resistance last month — the plan creates a “needs-based service duty” that can only begin if parliament votes for it. If lawmakers decide the security situation or staffing shortfalls justify compulsory service, the Bundeswehr would select only the required number of recruits through a structured process, resorting to a lottery only as a final measure. To strengthen the voluntary pathway, the deal includes new incentives: €2,600 monthly pay, a subsidy for a car or truck driver’s license after one year of service and a new status for long-serving volunteers. The compromise proposal also anchors a legal troop-growth target of 255,000 to 270,000 active soldiers plus around 200,000 reservists, aligned with Germany’s NATO commitments and reviewed twice a year by parliament. Currently, Germany has around 182,000 soldiers. The draft law is expected to be introduced to parliament for a vote by the end of the year.

Christian Lindner, Germany’s former finance minister, has long been passionate about cars. Now he’s taken on a key management role at a car dealership business. Lindner, the ex-leader of the car-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), a self-avowed car enthusiast known for driving a pricey vintage Porsche, announced he is taking a new position as deputy chairman of the board for Autoland AG, which calls itself Germany’s “largest auto discounter,” selling new and used cars. “Today, I want to be where the heart of the German economy beats,” Lindner wrote in an online post. “That it happens to be the automotive industry will not surprise anyone who knows my personal passions.” Autoland confirmed Lindner’s new role on Wednesday, saying he “will be responsible for marketing, sales, and digitalization.” Lindner served as finance minister in the troubled, three-party coalition government of previous Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Persistent conflicts over spending between Lindner’s fiscally conservative FDP and his left-leaning coalition partners led to the premature collapse of that government in late 2024, prompting an early federal election in February. During his time in office, Lindner pushed back against the EU’s planned phaseout of the combustion engine and was seen as close to the auto industry. In 2022, he was embroiled in a scandal over a text-message exchange with Porsche CEO Oliver Blume in which Lindner asked for “support with my arguments.” In the federal election earlier this year, Lindner’s FDP failed to reach the 5 percent threshold required for a party to make it into the Bundestag. He then stepped down as leader of the party, marking a stunning downfall for a politician once deemed by his peers to be a wunderkind of European fiscal conservatism. Under German law, former members of government have to report new private sector jobs for 18 months after leaving office. In cases involving potential conflicts of interest, the current government can disallow former officials from taking a job. German media poked fun at the former finance minister over his new job. “Christian Lindner joins the ranks of used car dealers,” ran the headline of a Spiegel article.