Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Brussels was jolted this week by dawn raids and an alleged fraud probe involving current and former senior EU diplomats. Host Sarah Wheaton speaks with Zoya Sheftalovich — a longtime Brussels Playbook editor who has just returned from Australia to begin her new role as POLITICO’s chief EU correspondent — and with Max Griera, our European Parliament reporter, to unpack what we know so far, what’s at stake for Ursula von der Leyen, and where the investigation may head next. Then, with Zoya staying in the studio, we’re joined by Senior Climate Correspondent Karl Mathiesen, Trade and Competition Editor Doug Busvine and Defense Editor Jan Cienski to take stock of the Commission’s first year — marked by this very bumpy week. We look at competitiveness, climate, defense and the fast-shifting global landscape — and our panel delivers its score for von der Leyen’s team.

BRUSSELS — The European Union will “think twice” before considering backing weak agreements at COP climate summits in the future, a Polish negotiator has warned. At this year’s COP30 climate conference in Brazil, the EU struggled to find allies to push for more ambitious climate action, and at one point threatened to walk away without signing a deal. The United States, its historical partner, was notably absent from the meeting. That’s a lesson learned, according to Katarzyna Wrona, Poland’s negotiator in the talks, who was also part of the EU’s delegation at the summit. “This COP happened in a very difficult geopolitical situation … We felt a very strong pressure from emerging economies but also from other parties, on financing, on trade,” she said at POLITICO’s Sustainable Future Summit. And “we had to really think very carefully whether we were in a position to support [the final deal], and we did, for the sake of multilateralism,” she added. “But I’m not sure … that the EU will be ready to take [this position] in the future,” Wrona warned. “Because something has changed, and we will surely think twice before we evaluate a deal that does not really bring much in terms of following up on the commitments that were undertaken,” she said. Also speaking on the panel, Elif Gökçe Öz, environmental counsellor at the permanent delegation of Turkey to the EU, said it would “be important for the EU … to forge alternative alliances in the COP negotiation process,” as global power dynamics shift. Wrona replied that the EU is “ready to work” with those that show ambition to reduce their emissions. “But it has to be very clearly … that the support is not limitless and it’s not unconditional,” she added.

EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra thinks reports of the death of Europe’s green agenda have been greatly exaggerated. “There’s always a lot of talk about backlash,” Hoekstra told POLITICO’s Sustainable Future Summit Tuesday. “That is, I think, one of the big misconceptions.” The EU’s new climate goal for 2040, agreed by ministers last month, “is actually an acceleration, rather than a downgrade, of what we are having today,” he said. The EU’s approach to its environmental and climate rules has been placed under extreme pressure from a combined pushback from far right parties, heavy industry and some leading members of Hoekstra’s own center right European People’s Party. That has led to the scrapping or weakening of some existing standards and made setting the 2040 target a brutal political fight. But Hoekstra said the realignment of some green policies was not about resiling from Europe’s environmental ambitions. “We’ll need to find a recipe — and I’ve been saying that over and over again — where we really make sure that climate, competitiveness and independence are being brought together. That in the end, is the winning formula,” he said. Hoekstra also pushed back on criticism by countries whose exports will be hit by the EU’s carbon border tax. This was a major feature of the recent COP30 climate negotiations, with large emerging economies like South Africa, India and China expressing concern about a measure they believe unfairly disadvantages their industries. Hoekstra dismissed that griping as a way to gain advantage in the course of the COP30 talks. “It is a tool that is being used, as quite often is the case in diplomacy,” he said. What he had heard “behind-closed-doors,” he said, was a completely different story. “Those who might have expressed their concerns publicly are not only acknowledging inside of a room that actually the effects are not that large, they’re actually even saying that it helps them to have a different type of conversation,” he said.

BELÉM, Brésil — L’Union européenne est arrivée au sommet mondial pour le climat cette année dans l’espoir d’exorciser certains de ses démons climatiques. Elle y est parvenue, dans une certaine mesure, puis en a trouvé de nouveaux. Après une année de querelles intestines qui se sont soldées par un accord de dernière minute sur de nouveaux objectifs de réduction des émissions de gaz à effeet de serre, juste avant le début de la COP30, l’Union européenne a cherché à à plaider en faveur d’une intensification des efforts mondiaux dans la lutte contre le changement climatique. Mais à Belém, la ville amazonienne qui accueillait les négociations, les Vingt-Sept ont été confronté à une dure réalité géopolitique. En l’absence des Etats-Unis, qui, lors des conférences précédentes, ont collaboré avec les Européens pour promouvoir davantage d’actions en faveur du climat, l’Union européenne a dû lutter contre le poids combiné de la Chine, de l’Inde, de l’Arabie saoudite et d’autres puissances économiques en plein essor. “Nous vivons une période géopolitique compliquée. Il y a donc une valeur essentielle — même si c’est difficile — à chercher à s’unir”, a déclaré à la presse Wopke Hoekstra, commissaire européen chargé de la politique climatique, après que l’Union a décidé de ne pas s’opposer à l’accord final conclu à l’issue de la conférence climatique. “Nous n’allons pas cacher le fait que nous aurions préféré en avoir plus, a-t-il déclaré. Mais le monde est ce qu’il est, la conférence est ce qu’elle est, et nous pensons que, dans l’ensemble, c’est un pas dans la bonne direction.” “On ne s’oppose pas [au texte] parce qu’il n’y a rien d’extraordinairement méchant”, a indiqué à la presse avant son adoption Monique Barbut, ministre de la Transition écologique française, dénonçant un accord “assez plat”. Le résultat final n’est pas celui pour lequel l’UE s’était battue, même si elle a obtenu quelques concessions après avoir menacé d’opposer son veto à l’accord vendredi, dans les dernières heures de négociations. Pour apaiser l’UE, ainsi qu’un petit groupe d’autres pays réticents tels que le Royaume-Uni et la Colombie, la présidence brésilienne de la COP30 a modifié son projet d’accord afin de confirmer un accord précédent sur la transition vers l’abandon des combustibles fossiles et a proposé d’entamer une discussion sur la manière de parvenir à cet accord au cours de l’année à venir. Un débrayage européen a été envisagé jusqu’à l’aube du dernier matin. “Nous avons été à bout de nerfs à certains moments de la nuit, tout comme l’Union européenne, car nous nous sommes dit que nous devions être capables de regarder les gens dans les yeux”, a déclaré Ed Miliband, secrétaire d’Etat britannique à l’énergie. Les pays développés ont également obtenu la modification d’une proposition visant à tripler le financement de la préparation des pays pauvres aux catastrophes climatiques. Ce financement sera désormais accordé plus tard que ne le souhaitaient les pays en développement et proviendra de sources autres que les budgets des pays riches. Monique Barbut a salué un “volet financier positif pour les pays les plus pauvres”. Pourtant, les Européens voulaient laisser au Brésil un signal beaucoup plus fort, en lui indiquant clairement la voie à suivre pour s’éloigner des combustibles fossiles. Mais ils n’ont pas réussi à construire une alliance suffisamment forte pour contrer l’opposition dirigée par l’Arabie saoudite — un effort entravé par des vents géopolitiques contraires ainsi que par des divisions internes qui ont pourchassé l’UE de Bruxelles jusqu’à Belém. DIVISIONS PERSISTANTES Les divisions sur le changement climatique qui ont marqué l’Union européenne tout au long de l’année ont eu une incidence sur les négociations. Jusqu’à vendredi matin, quelques heures avant la clôture de la conférence, l’Union européenne a été contrainte de rester en retrait chaque fois que des pays du monde entier se réunissaient pour réclamer plus d’ambitions. Un débrayage européen a été envisagé jusqu’à l’aube du dernier matin. Le ministre britannique de l’énergie, Ed Miliband, a confirmé que la situation avait été très tendue pendant la nuit, pour son pays comme pour l’Union européenne. | Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images Mardi, l’UE n’a pas participé à l’appel lancé par 82 pays, sous l’égide de la Colombie pour encourager une “feuille de route” qui matérialiserait l’accord antérieur de transition vers l’abandon des combustibles fossiles. De nombreux gouvernements de l’Union européenne, dont la France, ont soutenu individuellement cette initiative, mais deux diplomates ont déclaré que l’Italie et la Pologne ne pouvaient pas soutenir l’accord à l’époque, ce qui a empêché l’Union européenne dans son ensemble de peser de tout son poids en faveur de cet appel. L’Union a fini par proposer sa propre version. De même, l’UE ne figurait pas parmi la coalition de 29 pays qui a envoyé une lettre à la présidence brésilienne de la COP pour se plaindre qu’un projet de proposition en cours d’élaboration ne contenait pas de référence à la feuille de route ou à d’autres efforts. La majorité des gouvernements de l’Union européenne ont soutenu la missive, mais dix Etats membres, dont la Grèce, la Hongrie, l’Italie, la Pologne et la Slovaquie, ne l’ont pas fait. Cette répartition reflète largement les divisions qui ont marqué l’élaboration de la politique climatique de l’UE pendant une grande partie de l’année. L’Union européenne a passé ces derniers mois à essayer de se mettre d’accord sur une paire de nouveaux objectifs de réduction des émissions, un processus houleux qui s’est heurté à la résistance de pays préoccupés par l’impact des efforts écologiques sur leurs industries nationales. Les 27 gouvernements ont finalement conclu un accord à la veille de la COP30, fixant de nouveaux objectifs plus souples qu’initialement envisagés, mais qui comptent néanmoins parmi les plus ambitieux au monde. Toutefois, à ce stade, il était bien trop tard pour que l’UE tire parti de ces objectifs et fasse pression sur d’autres grands émetteurs, tels que la Chine, pour qu’ils intensifient leurs efforts. L’envoyé de Pékin a suggéré dans un entretien avec POLITICO que si l’Union voulait être un leader en matière de climat, elle devait régler ses divisions internes. Les Européens “avaient l’habitude d’être plus actifs et de se faire entendre. On a l’impression que leur mouvement de balancier sur le continent a un impact, a constaté un négociateur latino-américain. Ils maintiennent leurs positions, ne reviennent pas en arrière, mais ils ne semblent plus aussi forts. C’est comme si la passion avait disparu.” ISOLÉ À BELÉM Pourtant, lorsque tous les pays ont reçu le projet d’accord de la présidence brésilienne vendredi matin, l’UE a décidé de prendre position. Trois diplomates européens ont déclaré que l’ensemble du bloc était uni dans la fureur contre le texte — des nations les plus ambitieuses en matière de climat, comme le Danemark, aux retardataires, comme la Pologne, se plaignant de la faiblesse du langage sur la réduction des émissions et des lignes rouges franchies en matière de financement. Tous les ministres ont été invités à téléphoner à leur capitale pour demander l’autorisation d’opposer leur veto à un accord si nécessaire, ont indiqué quatre diplomates. Wopke Hoekstra a déclaré lors d’une réunion organisée par les Brésiliens : “Nous n’allons en aucun cas accepter cela.” Andre Correa do Lago, président de la COP30. Pour apaiser l’UE, le Royaume-Uni, la Colombie et d’autres pays, la présidence brésilienne de la COP30 a modifié son projet d’accord sur les combustibles fossiles. | Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images “Nous sommes restés unis jusqu’au bout, même si, bien sûr, nous avions tous des divergences d’appréciation sur la situation générale”, a déclaré la ministre française Monique Barbut, qui avait déclaré à plusieurs journalistes que le texte en l’état était “inacceptable”. La force du message de la délégation de l’UE a toutefois été quelque peu atténuée par sa cheffe de file, Ursula von der Leyen, présidente de la Commission européenne. S’exprimant à peu près au même moment au G20 en Afrique du Sud, Ursula von der Leyen a affirmé: “Nous ne luttons pas contre les combustibles fossiles, nous luttons contre les émissions provenant des combustibles fossiles.” “Elle est une star qui sape ses propres négociateurs pendant la COP”, s’est plaint un diplomate de l’UE. Mais l’UE a également été confrontée à une nouvelle réalité géopolitique à Belém. Le ministre allemand du climat, Carsten Schneider, a parlé samedi d’un “nouvel ordre mondial” auquel l’UE devrait s’habituer : “Quelque chose a changé, et c’est devenu très évident ici.” Tout au long de ces deux semaines, les diplomates européens se sont plaints amèrement des tactiques employées par l’Arabie saoudite et d’autres grands producteurs de pétrole, qui se sont farouchement opposés à tout appel à s’attaquer aux combustibles fossiles. Selon eux, Riyad et ses alliés ont été enhardis par l’absence des Américains et ont constamment pris la parole lors des réunions pour faire dérailler les négociations. Les notes d’une réunion à huis clos communiquées à POLITICO montrent également que l’Arabie saoudite a cherché à dénoncer l’UE pour avoir imposé des droits de douane sur le carbone. “Nous avons été confrontés à une pétro-industrie très puissante qui a organisé une majorité de blocage contre tout progrès”, a déclaré Carsten Schneider. Le bloc était frustré par ce qu’il considérait comme la complaisance du Brésil à l’égard de ses alliés des BRICS (la Chine, l’Inde, l’Afrique du Sud et d’autres économies émergentes), en marchant droit sur les lignes rouges de l’UE en matière d’aide climatique et en poussant le bloc dans des discussions inconfortables sur les mesures commerciales. Mais les Européens se sont également sentis abandonnés par leurs alliés traditionnels, tels que les petits Etats insulaires, sur lesquels ils comptaient pour soutenir leur action en faveur du climat. Au final, les Européens et une poignée de pays d’Amérique latine sont restés seuls. “Nous devons mener une véritable réflexion sur le rôle de l’UE dans ces négociations mondiales”, a déclaré un négociateur européen de haut rang. “Nous avons sous-estimé les BRICS et un peu surestimé notre force — et nous avons certainement surestimé l’unité de ceux que nous considérons comme nos alliés.”

BELÉM, Brazil — The European Union came into this year’s COP30 summit hoping to exorcise some of its climate demons. It did, to a degree — then found new ones.  After a year of infighting that ended in a last-minute deal on new pollution-cutting targets just before the annual U.N. conference began, the EU sought to make the case for greater global efforts to fight climate change.  But in Belém, the Amazonian host city of COP30, the 27-country bloc was confronted with a stark geopolitical reality. In the absence of the United States, which at past conferences worked with the Europeans to push for more climate action, the EU struggled to fight against the combined weight of China, India, Saudi Arabia and other rising economic powers.  “We’re living through complicated geopolitical times. So there is intrinsic value, no matter how difficult, to seek to come together,” EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra told reporters after the bloc decided not to oppose the final conference agreement.  “We’re not going to hide the fact we would have preferred to have more,” he said. “And yet the world is what it is, the conference is what it is, and we do think this on balance is a step in the right direction.”  The end result was not what the EU had fought for — though the bloc eked out a handful of concessions after threatening to veto the deal on Friday.  To appease the EU, as well as a small group of other holdouts such as the United Kingdom and Colombia, the Brazilian presidency of COP30 tweaked its draft deal to affirm a previous agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels and offered to start a discussion on how to achieve that deal over the next year.  A European walkout was on the cards until just after dawn on the final morning. “It was on the edge for us at times during the night — and for the EU — because we just thought actually we’ve got to be able to look people in the eye,” said U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Developed countries also won changes to a proposal to triple financing for poorer countries to prepare for climate disasters, which will now be provided later than developing nations wanted and draw funds from sources beyond rich countries’ budgets.  Still, the Europeans had wanted to leave Brazil with a much larger signal, laying out a clear path away from fossil fuels.  But they failed to build an alliance strong enough to counter the Saudi-led opposition — an effort hampered by geopolitical headwinds as well as internal divisions that had followed the EU from Brussels all the way to Belém.  LINGERING DIVISIONS  Divisions over climate change that had dogged the EU throughout the year did affect the bloc’s negotiations. Until Friday morning, hours before the conference was scheduled to end, the EU was forced to take a back seat each time countries from across the globe came together to urge greater ambition.  A European walkout was on the cards until just after dawn on the final morning. “It was on the edge for us at times during the night — and for the EU,” confirmed U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images On Tuesday, the EU was absent from an 82-country call spearheaded by Colombia to draw up a “roadmap” to deliver on the earlier agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.  Many of the bloc’s governments individually backed the move, but two diplomats said Italy and Poland could not support the agreement at the time, leaving the EU as a whole unable to throw its weight behind the call. The bloc eventually proposed its own version.  Similarly, the EU was not among the signatories on Thursday when a coalition of 29 countries sent a letter to the Brazilian COP30 presidency to complain that a draft proposal in the works did not contain a reference to the roadmap or other efforts.  The majority of the bloc’s governments backed the missive, but 10 EU countries — including Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia — did not. The split broadly reflected the divisions that had plagued the EU’s climate politics for much of this year.  The bloc spent the past few months trying to agree on a pair of new targets to reduce emissions, a fractious process that met with resistance from countries concerned about the impact of green efforts on their domestic industries.  The 27 governments eventually struck a deal on the eve of COP30, setting new goals that were softer than initially envisaged but nevertheless rank among the world’s most ambitious.  Yet by that point, it was far too late for the EU to leverage its targets and pressure other big emitters, such as China, into stepping up their efforts. (Beijing’s envoy suggested in an interview with POLITICO that if the bloc wanted to be a climate leader, the EU needed to sort out its internal divisions.)  “They used to be more active, more vocal. It feels like their pendulum swing at home is having an impact,” one Latin American negotiator said. “They keep their positions, no backtracking, but it doesn’t feel as strong anymore. Like the passion is gone.”  ISOLATED IN BELÉM Yet when all countries were presented with the Brazilian presidency’s draft deal on Friday morning, the EU decided to take a stand.  Three European diplomats said the entire bloc was united in fury at the text — with everyone from the most climate-ambitious nations such as Denmark to laggards such as Poland fuming about weak language on cutting emissions and crossed red lines on finance.  All ministers were asked to get on the phone to their capitals to request permission to veto a deal if necessary, four diplomats said. Hoekstra told a gathering convened by the Brazilians: “Under no circumstances are we going to accept this.”  COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago. To appease the EU, the U.K., Colombia and others, the Brazilian presidency of COP30 tweaked its draft deal on fossil fuels. | Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images “We stayed united until the end, despite the fact that of course we all had differences in our assessment of the overall situation here,” said Monique Barbut, France’s ecological transition minister.  The strength of the EU delegation’s message, however, was somewhat undercut by their own leader: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Speaking around the same time at the G20 in South Africa, von der Leyen asserted: “We are not fighting fossil fuels, we are fighting the emissions from fossil fuels.” “She’s a star in undermining her own negotiators during COP,” one EU diplomat complained.  But the EU also faced a new geopolitical reality in Belém.  German Climate Minister Carsten Schneider on Saturday spoke of a “new world order” that the EU would need to get used to. “Something has changed, and that has become very apparent here.”  Throughout the two weeks, European diplomats complained bitterly about the tactics employed by Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers, which fiercely opposed any call to tackle fossil fuels.  Riyadh and its allies, they said, were emboldened by Washington’s absence and constantly took the floor in meetings to derail the talks. Notes from a closed-door meeting shared with POLITICO also show that Saudi Arabia sought to bash the bloc for imposing carbon tariffs.  “We faced a very strong petro-industry… which organised a blocking majority here against any progress,” Schneider said.  The bloc was frustrated about what they saw as Brazil pandering to its BRICS allies — China, India, South Africa and other emerging economies — in walking right over the EU’s red lines on providing climate aid and pushing the bloc into uncomfortable discussions on trade measures.  But they also left feeling abandoned by traditional allies, such as small island states, that they had counted on to back their push for more climate action. In the end, the Europeans and a handful of Latin American countries stood alone.  “We need to do some real thinking about what the EU’s role in these global talks is,” one senior European negotiator said. “We underestimated the BRICS and overestimated our strength a little bit — and we definitely overestimated the unity of those we consider our allies.” 

BELÉM, Brazil — The U.S. snubbed the talks. Petro-states and fossil-fuel-hungry emerging economies got most of what they wanted. And Europeans struggled to show they were prepared to lead the effort to squelch global warming. Two weeks of climate negotiations hardly ended in triumph Saturday, following a U.N. summit whose final days included a fire that interrupted discussions about how to stop burning the planet. But they did end, with a deal that even critical delegates said shows that a divided, leaderless collection of nearly 200 nations can make some progress toward the goal of averting heat waves, deepening droughts and increasingly destructive storms. The delegates shoved the hardest decisions off onto future summits, however. Those included debates about accelerating previous pledges to switch away from fossil fuels, and about reducing trade barriers that hinder the flow of clean energy technologies. The result exposed the world as it is — haltingly and slowly tackling climate pollution, and fragmented by rising economic nationalism and protectionism, rather than the united, optimistic community of nations that produced the Paris climate agreement 10 years ago. “I would have preferred a more ambitious agreement,” U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said in the COP30 venue in Belém, Brazil, a port city selected for the symbolic importance of its presence in the Amazon. “But at a time of great political challenge — when you’ve got America, for example, that has left the Paris Agreement — I think this is a significant moment.” French environment minister Monique Barbut said her country is “not opposing the deal because there’s nothing particularly bad about it. It’s a fairly bland text. This text does not raise our overall ambition, but it does not undermine previous progress.” Other leaders’ reactions were far more dour. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, for example, expressed disappointment that the final text did not include a proposal backed by European and Latin American countries to urge a faster shift away from coal, oil and natural gas. “I do not accept that the COP30 declaration does not clearly state, as science does, that the cause of the climate crisis is the fossil fuels used by capital,” Petro wrote on X. “If that is not stated, everything else is hypocrisy.” It was all a comedown from the rapturous hopes among climate supporters that greeted Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s electoral victory in his presidential comeback three years ago, which raised expectations that the fate of the Earth would be an obsession for the new Brazilian government — with a special focus on the Amazon rainforest and the Indigenous people who live in it. Three years ago, delegates at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt broke out in chants of “ole, ole, ole, ole, Lula, Lula,” when the newly victorious Brazilian leader took the podium at the talks. This week, he spoke to a more muted and divided gathering. “We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Lula said Wednesday after he met with countries to break an impasse at COP30. “If fossil fuels emit too much, we must begin thinking about how to live without them.” Here are some of the most important lessons learned from 13 days in the Amazon: THE US ABSENCE MATTERED U.S. President Donald Trump is the most obvious avatar for the geopolitical shifts confronting the talks. He campaigned for the White House on a promise — mostly fulfilled — of eradicating the Biden-era green subsidies that he blamed for rising costs. He has also used U.S. economic might to stymie other nations’ climate plans, including pressuring other governments to buy more American fossil fuels. In the face of those threats, many countries that wanted to adopt a strongly pro-climate stance had to behave “like a silent majority,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s former environmental minister, said in an interview. “And so the U.S. is not here, but actually it is here in other ways.” The possibility of Trump hitting nations large and small lingered in the background: Convening just weeks after the U.S. pressured a world maritime body to shelve a vote on establishing a climate pollution fee on global shipping, many worried what he might try at COP30 from afar. Trump also used his domestic powers to offer some COP30 counterprogramming at home, including proposing to open wide stretches of the U.S. coastline to oil and gas drilling. That included the coast of California, whose Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, stormed through the summit’s early days to send the message that Americans are still on board with the climate cause. Several negotiators, including Vanuatu’s Ralph Regenvanu, said it’s better the U.S. did not attend the talks. But the prospects of a vengeful Washington seems to have quieted some traditionally vocal governments during the summit, said French diplomat Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the Paris Agreement — including Caribbean island nations jeopardized by hurricanes that climate change is intensifying. The U.S. also left a leadership void that exacerbated the challenge. Nations’ newly submitted plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions through 2035 lack the heft that advocates had hoped for, and many don’t even mention efforts to wind down fossil fuels. The math is bleak: A U.N. report that tallied up those plans concluded that the world would certainly surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming since preindustrial times, the Paris Agreement’s stretch goal. “If we had been involved as a pro-climate United States, it would not look like this at all,” former U.S. climate negotiator Sue Biniaz said of where things stood Friday evening. The White House maintained Saturday that Trump is the real world leader on energy policy, saying in a statement that “countries are lining up to partner with the U.S.” “The President has set a strong example for the rest of the world by reversing course on the Green Energy Scam and unleashing our natural resources, like beautiful, clean coal and natural gas, to strengthen our grid stability and lower energy costs,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. BRICS ASCENDANT AND SAUDIS EMBOLDENED The key beneficiaries of the U.S. absence were a group of countries allied by their sense that the West is fading and the 21st century is theirs for the taking. These “BRICS” — named after their core members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have differing interests, but are often united at climate talks in their rejection of efforts by wealthy countries to get them to shift away from fossil fuels more quickly. Those five countries will be responsible for 46 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions in 2025, according to an EU database. The “U.S.-sized hole” at COP30 created a vacuum for those countries to assert their own priorities, said Li Shuo, China Climate Hub director at the think tank Asia Society Policy Institute. He said the U.S. under past Democratic presidents prodded countries into setting loftier goals. But now a “rebalancing” of power is taking place that favors emerging economies, combined with a focus on tangible next steps to combat climate change given challenging domestic politics across the world, Li said. “The zeitgeist of global climate politics is you look across the world, most of the countries — in particular the major emitting countries — are having a hard time domestically, economically and also on their climate agenda,” he said. “Countries need to deliver domestically, and there’s a big gap between those rhetorical aspirations and what they’re doing at home.” That sense of ascendance was reinforced when Turkey, a major emerging economy, beat out Australia, a country with one of the highest median incomes in the world, to host next year’s talks. The BRICS’s fellowship was also on show in the final meeting of the talks when Russia’s delegate accused Colombia of behaving like ”children who want to get your hands on all the sweets.” That remark came after Colombian delegates complained about Brazil’s oversight of the legal proceedings that formalized the deal. Without the U.S. and aided by the Brazilian presidency, the emerging countries set up a barrier to efforts by the Europeans to lay out concrete steps and waypoints for the move off coal, oil and gas. On Friday, the Brazilians released a proposal for the deal that a European negotiator summed up as “a BRICS text.” Stopped in the corridor, Chinese Deputy Climate Minister Li Gao expressed approval, calling it a “delicately balanced text.” An Indian delegate shared the same sentiment in comments from the cavernous plenary floor. The final deal won some minor concessions from the EU. But the deal was still shaped by the BRICS and defended by petro-states. Leaked notes from a closed doors meeting between ministers on Friday, seen by POLITICO, showed how fractious the talks become. A Saudi delegate refused to countenance any deal that constrained the Kingdom’s control over its own industries and resources. That infuriated the Europeans. In a statement he later publicized, EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra complained that this was backtracking on a 2023 agreement that explicitly committed the world to shift away from fossil fuels. “What on Earth did we then do two years ago?” Hoekstra asked. “The dissatisfaction of the Arab group and the Saudis two years ago is being played out here, and they are trying to eviscerate” the 2023 deal, said a European diplomat. THE EU IS WEAKENED Together with the U.K., which had set one of the world’s most ambitious goals, the EU tried to fill the void of U.S. diplomatic and economic heft to push the deal toward a more consequential outcome. They forced the talks into overtime by refusing to back a deal that did not address the need to move away from fossil fuels in some small way. Those European countries also fought to water down the deal on funding for projects that would help poor countries defend themselves against climate change. But the EU entered the talks bruised from year-long internal battles among its 27 member countries over a new climate goal for 2040. “I don’t see a leadership position in the EU right now. I see an EU that is conservative,” said Muhamad, the former Colombian minister, while noting that some countries such as the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia wanted more aggressive climate action. “But not the EU as a bloc.” Those divisions carried into the talks, with two diplomats saying Poland and Italy had initially not endorsed the “road map” for moving away from fossil fuels, meaning the EU was unable to endorse the idea. The bloc eventually put forward its own proposal. “Which road map? Where is it? Where is it?” South African delegation head Maesela Kekana told POLITICO when asked questions about the EU-backed proposal. “You talk too much to the rich countries.” The talks ultimately produced a side deal for a road map process that was not included in the official decision. It was a consolation prize for the EU and other countries that backed the concept, but one that reinforced the reality that the emerging economic powers that blocked it from the final text were in the driver seat right until the finish line. CHINA PROFITS FROM THE STATUS QUO A major question facing the talks was whether China, the world’s top clean energy producer, would try to strengthen the U.N.’s institutions and the call for more aggressive climate action. It did not. “Credible climate leadership would require pushing ambition and bringing others along,” said Kate Logan, director of China Climate Hub and climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “I hope to see that from China going forward.” But the status quo benefits China, which sells a bulk of the world its clean energy materials and equipment but is also the world’s top spewer of greenhouse gases. Its new 10-year plan for slashing carbon emissions further drew criticism from activists and diplomats who saw it as mild. Rather than urge all nations into bolder stances to cut planet-cooking pollution, China used the forum to press its own interests. China capped a multiyear quest to elevate a call for bringing attention to the effects of unilateral trade measures to the official U.N. climate agenda. China has exported an oversupply of solar and wind equipment, batteries and electric vehicles at sharply reduced prices, generating retaliatory tariffs from countries that want to protect their domestic manufacturers. It has contended this is unfair and harms global climate efforts by raising prices on the market’s most widely available products. China’s trade endeavor runs counter to the political discussion in European capitals and the U.S., which has sought to keep Chinese goods out of their markets. Trump has attempted to do this with tariffs, while the U.S. earlier tried to counteract Chinese imports by using the massive domestic tax breaks in former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Republicans obliterated in July. But Beijing got rhetorical support from COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, who heaped praise on China’s cheap tech for helping emerging economies affordably transition to cleaner energy. Many of those countries backed China’s trade push, and COP30 applied little pressure on China to do more on anything else. THE EARTH KEEPS WARMING Brazilian officials and veterans of the climate talks saw even getting through this conference as a victory. The goal was to preserve multilateral diplomacy even as the chances of adhering to the 1.5-degree goal appear dead. “Optimism is probably not the sentiment we could have these days in the world economy, in the world situation,” Tubiana said. “So my response is always we have to do whatever we can because every fraction of a degree counts.” The verbiage shift lays it bare: Diplomats here now speak of limiting “overshoot” of the target, which U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called a “grim assessment.” Just four years ago at COP26 in Glasgow, it was “Keep 1.5 Alive.” The decision in Belém will do little to help those matters in the immediate term, as it essentially punts anything new and tangible to future years. Even then, the results are inconclusive. Many nations wanted to highlight the gap between national climate plans and the cuts needed to stay onside of the 1.5-degree goal. They got a voluntary initiative to track and support efforts to implement climate policies, but the deal fell short of a more ambitious proposal that would have more closely monitored nations’ progress in getting rid of fossil fuels. While poorer governments pressed for countries to triple an earlier $40 billion commitment to provide grants and cheap finance to help them cope with a warmer world, the text merely “calls for efforts” to do so by 2035. Yet the climate realities are evident and mounting in every corner of the globe. Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege at a Tuesday press conference rattled off recent catastrophes preceding COP30: Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 cyclone that hit Jamaica on Oct. 28, and Typhoon Kalmaegi, which tore through Vietnam and the Philippines earlier this month. Those events underscored the need to kick fossil fuels as fast as possible, she said. “It’s just part of a litany of disasters that has now become part of our daily news,” Stege said.

Quella che si è appena conclusa a Belém, in Brasile, doveva essere la Conferenza delle Parti sul Clima della concretizzazione. Non è stato così, certamente per quanto riguarda la “transizione dalle fonti fossili”: è stato impossibile mettere insieme 194 Paesi che, insieme, non hanno mai camminato e non lo faranno nei prossimi decenni. Alla Cop30 molte maschere sono cadute, fuori e dentro l’Europa. C’è una riorganizzazione di alleanze trasversali. Arabia Saudita, Russia e gli altri petro-Stati, ormai non più padroni di casa delle Cop, si sono opposti in modo palese a concreti passi in avanti. Altri 86 Paesi chiedevano una roadmap, ossia una tabella di marcia chiara per l’uscita dai combustibili fossili (neppure citati nel documento finale), iniziativa partita dal Brasile e poi sostenuta anche dall’Unione europea, ma con una serie di nazioni restie a prendere posizioni (come l’Italia), altre che prima si sono esposte e poi hanno fatto dietrofront. Dopo un clima diventato sempre più teso, tra piogge tropicali, manifestazioni con migliaia di persone in piazza, la protesta degli indigeni che è arrivata fino alle sale dove si svolgono i negoziati, un incendio tra i padiglioni e le aspettative – altissime – che mano a mano si abbassavano, si è arrivati allo scontro. Duro e inevitabile. E altri Stati hanno puntato i piedi. Sono quelli che hanno scritto alla presidenza della Cop30 ponendo un veto sul riferimento esplicito alla roadmap, proposta che mette insieme Paesi ricchi e in via di sviluppo, le principali nazioni europee ma, anche qui, non l’Italia. E 24 nazioni hanno firmato l’iniziativa di Colombia e Paesi Bassi di organizzare una prima conferenza internazionale ad hoc sulla transizione dai combustibili fossili a Santa Marta, in Colombia, ad aprile 2025. Multilateralismo è stata una parola chiave della Cop ma, se avrà un contenuto, è tutto da stabilire. TENSIONE FINO ALL’ULTIMO MINUTO La tensione è andata avanti fino all’ultimo minuto. I lavori della plenaria sono stati sospesi dopo una rivolta da parte di delegati di alcuni Paesi che si sono lamentati dell’approvazione di documenti senza un accordo. A vertice chiuso, il presidente della Cop, André Correa do Lago, l’ha riaperta, dicendo di essere stanco e scusandosi per non aver colto le obiezioni sollevate dalla Colombia e da altri Paesi, tra cui Uruguay e Cile, riguardo il mancato inserimento di un obiettivo definito per l’abbandono dei combustibili fossili nel testo delle conclusioni. Do Lago ha spiegato di aver consultato gli avvocati, i quali affermano che l’accordo che è stato approvato non può essere riaperto per inserire un linguaggio più forte sui combustibili fossili. Ma la Colombia è determinata e ha fatto sapere che consulterà i propri avvocati. PASSI IN AVANTI SULL’ADATTAMENTO La Cop30 è stato il primo vertice sul clima dopo che il mondo ha registrato un intero anno con temperature superiori a 1,5 °C. E forse anche questo ha pesato su uno dei pochi risultati concreti. Riguardo alla finanza climatica, infatti, i paesi ricchi si sono impegnati a triplicare i finanziamenti per l’adattamento nell’ambito del Nuovo obiettivo di finanza climatica (NCQG) deciso alla Cop 29, da 300 miliardi di dollari entro il 2035. I Paesi in via di sviluppo avrebbero preferito entro il 2030, resta il fatto che si tratta di circa 120 miliardi di dollari dell’obiettivo di 300 miliardi destinati a misure di adattamento nei paesi più vulnerabili. Alla Cop 30, poi, sono stati promessi 135 milioni di dollari al Fondo per l’adattamento. Mentre la Roadmap Baku-Belem ha definito un piano per aumentare i finanziamenti globali per il clima al almeno 1,3 trilioni di dollari all’anno entro il 2035 (obiettivo già concordato a Baku). Sono stati poi promessi 300 milioni di dollari per il Piano d’Azione Sanitario di Belém per sostenere l’adattamento del settore sanitario ai cambiamenti climatici. NON C’È ACCORDO SULL’USCITA DALLE FOSSILI, MA PASSI IN AVANTI SU ADATTAMENTO È difficile dire che cosa voglia davvero dire il presidente brasiliano, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, affermando che alla Cop30 “la scienza ha prevalso, il multilateralismo ha vinto”. Certo è che, a dieci anni dall’Accordo di Parigi e a due anni dal testo finale della Cop23 di Dubai, con cui tutti i Paesi si impegnavano per una graduale “transizione dai combustibili fossili”, alla Cop30 organizzata in un paese amazzonico non si riescono neppure a citare i combustibili fossili nel documento finale, la Mutirão Decision. Non è stato accolto l’appello del presidente Lula e di oltre 80 Paesi per una roadmap su fossili e deforestazione ma – con una scelta controversa e contraddittoria – si conferma la traiettoria tracciata nel documento finale (e storico) del 2023, nel quale per la prima volta si citavano eccome i combustibili fossili. Sembra un secolo fa. A mettersi di traverso, a quanto pare, gli altri Paesi Brics (in primis Russia e India) e dei Paesi del Golfo. Venerdì, la prima doccia fredda. Perché dopo l’accelerata che la presidenza sembrava voler dare a questa Conferenza delle Parti sul clima, nel giorno che avrebbe dovuto chiudere la Cop sono invece arrivate le versioni aggiornate dei testi negoziali, compresa la bozza della Mutirão Decision. Un testo che ha scontentato tutti i Paesi più ambiziosi perché, già quello, non citava la tabella di marcia. La situazione non è cambiata più di tanto. Alla fine, dunque, nessuna roadmap per i 194, ma alla Cop si concorda per l’avvio di nuovi processi per accelerare la transizione energetica, come il Global Implementation Accelerator e la Belém Mission to 1.5. La prima però, è un’iniziativa volontaria sotto la guida delle presidenze delle prossime due Cop (quindi un processo biennale) per discutere di come aumentare l’implementazione di Ndc, i Contributi determinati a livello nazionale sulla mitigazione e Nap, ossia i piani per l’adattamento. La Belém Mission to 1.5, sotto la guida della Cop30 e delle successive due, servirà a capire come accelerare l’implementazione, la cooperazione internazionale e gli investimenti nei piani nazionali. LA POSIZIONE DI PICHETTO E DI MELONI (AL G20 ININFLUENTE) “La tabella di marcia sulla transizione dai combustibili fossili non è parte del documento della Cop30 perché metà dei paesi sinceramente non condividevano questa posizione. Noi, nel merito, valutando poi i contenuti, abbiamo dichiarato la nostra adesione a sederci e vedere il percorso” ha dichiarato il ministro dell’Ambiente, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, parlando con i giornalisti, ribadendo che, anche all’interno dell’Unione europea ci sono Paesi “per cui il percorso di transizione dai combustibili fossili è più facile” rispetto all’Italia, perché possono contare su altre fonti in misura maggiore “dalle rinnovabili come la Spagna, al nucleare come la Francia”. Nel frattempo, era partito anche il G20 a Johannesburg, in Sud Africa. Lo scorso anno, il G20 in Brasile non aveva aiutato la Cop di Baku, in Azerbaigian, ma la speranza era che l’incontro tra Lula, la presidente della Commissione europea, Ursula von der Leyen, il presidente francese Macron e quello sudafricano, Cyril Ramaphosa, potesse aiutare ad aprire un dialogo con i leader di Paesi come Arabia Saudita e India. Non è andata per nulla così. Le parole della presidente della Commissione europea, Ursula von der Leyen, non hanno certo giocato la partita dei Paesi più ambiziosi: “Non stiamo combattendo i combustibili fossili, quanto le emissioni che derivano dai combustibili fossili” ha dichiarato, nel chiaro intento di non scontentare nessuno. E Giorgia Meloni ha dato l’affondo: “Dobbiamo abbandonare una volta per tutte un dogmatismo ideologico che sta provocando più danni che benefici. In Europa, ad esempio, sono state fatte in passato scelte che hanno messo in ginocchio interi settori produttivi, e senza che questo producesse un beneficio reale sulle emissioni globali”. L'articolo Alla Cop30 nessuna roadmap sull’addio ai combustibili fossili (neppure citati). Giù le maschere: Paesi a diverse velocità proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

BELÉM, Brazil — Almost 200 countries gathered in Brazil acknowledged Saturday that their efforts to stop calamitous global warming were off pace — but geopolitical headwinds and fossil-fuel-producing countries snuffed out hopes of a meaningful commitment to move faster. The deal approved after a difficult final day of negotiations near the mouth of the Amazon calls for enhanced efforts by nations to curb the Earth’s rising temperatures and provide poorer, particularly vulnerable countries with assurances of funding to deal with the impacts of a hotter planet. But it offers money less quickly than those nations would have wanted, due to resistance from Europe and other rich countries. The COP30 agreement also points to expansions of the worldwide clean energy economy, calling the transition toward reduced planet-warming pollution and more climate-resilient development “irreversible and the trend of the future.” It was a stronger outcome than what the talks’ Brazilian hosts had proposed in the final days of the talks. The negotiations faced multiple complications, including the United States’ refusal to attend the summit at all. But the agreement still only alludes to a push by 82 nations, including many in Europe, for a concrete process to speed up the worldwide transition away from fossil fuels. That proposal had drawn objections from major oil- and natural-gas-producing nations, which have pointed to rising energy demand as a driver of the continued need for output. Instead, countries agreed to take marginal steps to accelerate their climate efforts while “striving” to do better, a phrase that China — the world’s clean energy superpower, second-biggest economy and largest greenhouse gas polluter — has used to refer to its own targets. Brazil also pushed a side deal for creating two separate “roadmaps” that would outline a path toward winding down fossil fuel use and ending deforestation. Colombia and the Netherlands, strong advocates of a fossil fuel phase-out, had announced Friday they would co-host a summit next year to move that effort forward. “As president of this conference, it is my duty to recognize some very important discussions that took place in Belém and that need to continue during the Brazilian presidency … even if they are not reflected in these texts we just approved,” COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said following the final gaveling. “There was no backtracking, there was a bit of progress,” said German climate minister Carsten Schneider. “I would have liked to see much more, but we also wanted a COP that produces results and shows that multilateralism works, even if it is incredibly difficult.” The final text is nonbinding, and even a firm reiteration of a previous summit’s 2023 pledge to eventually phase out oil, gas and coal would have no effect on countries such as the United States that are aggressively moving to expand their production and exports of fossil fuels. But the less-than-resounding support for taking that pledge forward raises questions about whether countries remained united behind a goal they had described as historic just two years ago, according to delegates who expressed disappointment Saturday. The 13 days of talks by nearly 200 countries in the northern Brazilian port city of Belém had taken place without U.S. delegates present — a first for the annual global climate talks — after President Donald Trump dismissed the entire effort to avert the Earth’s warming as a “hoax” and a “con job.” Trump announced in January that he was once again withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the global climate pact whose goals had provided a basis for this month’s negotiations. The absence of a strong U.S. push for a climate deal, something Washington had provided at previous talks under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, allowed a bloc of emerging economies and petro-states to scrub the final text of any explicit mention of the fuels driving climate change. EU members, while initially split over whether to endorse the roadmap on fossil fuels, had railed against the snub on Friday and were prepared to walk away from the summit on the final day without a deal. But the bloc won a handful of small concessions overnight, and after hours of discussions early Saturday morning decided to endorse the slightly tweaked text. “We would have liked to have more,” EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said, but “we do think we should support it because at least it goes in the right direction.” The 2023 U.N. climate summit in the United Arab Emirates — a major oil and gas producer in its own right — had urged countries to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” In the years since, fossil fuel production has continued rising. At the same time, though, use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power have taken off, thanks in large part to lower costs and rising exports of gear from China. But China, which still describes itself as a developing country, declined to step into a political leadership position at the talks, despite having a major presence at the summit and a predominant role in the world’s clean energy supply chains. That left the European Union and more progressive climate countries, such as Colombia and the United Kingdom, isolated in pushing for a more ambitious deal without U.S. backing. As the COP30 host and president, Brazil had placed a priority on connecting the talks to the real economy and sending a message that global cooperation on climate is still alive and breathing. The final deal achieved that aim, but just. “At a time of great political challenge, 193 countries have come together within the Paris Agreement to recommit to acting on the climate crisis,” said U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. “We fought hard for this outcome because it is crucial to protect future generations and because of the economic opportunities today from clean energy.”

BELÉM, Brazil — Grip the gear switch, twist, then silently glide into the potholed street. This fully electric, Caipirinha-colored car embodies the hope and confidence that large, developing economies like Brazil have zapped into the COP30 U.N. climate conference — and the anxieties and anger this optimism is generating in the West. I took a test drive of the BYD Dolphin Mini, the Chinese carmaker’s most popular model in Brazil. It comes with a stripped-down dash, chunky dials and a rotating screen display. Solid, whiz-bang modernity and, at just under 120,000 Brazilian Reals (around $22,500), cheap enough to appeal to a growing market of professionals — a target demographic of the company — even in one of Brazil’s poorest regions. Bringing all the governments of the world — bar the United States — to Brazil has shown that the doom and gloom over the cost of doing something to stop climate change is a peculiarly Western pathology. For many of the other nations gathered at the conference, whether they’re buying or selling, it’s the opportunity of the age. Countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia and Pakistan — so long dragged backwards by structural economic problems — are finding new energy and investment, job opportunities and cheap, clean consumer products thanks to the technologies that have grown out of efforts to stop global warming. China is the biggest beneficiary. Beijing is growing its sphere of influence in developing countries like Brazil and building a market for its new tech — as well as rattling the old powers in the West and feeding U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegation that climate efforts are a stalking horse for the Chinese century. Jobson Machedo was too busy to care about that, though. Machedo, BYD’s tattooed trade and marketing manager for northern Brazil, and I took a drive on Nov. 11, the day after the COP30 summit opened here in the Amazonian city of Belém. He was planning the festivities for the next day’s grand opening of their new showroom in the city. BYD’s current space in Belém had opened less than two years earlier, but it was already way too small. Just up the road was a giant new glass-fronted building, big enough to rival any of those of the American, Japanese and European carmakers in Belém’s moto district. “BYD in Brazil is trying to make a party,” Machedo said. The concrete was still wet, and workers were thumping down pavers across the vast acreage of the sales lot. But the guests were coming. It was time to sell some cars. Since opening a showroom in São Paolo in 2022, BYD, China’s biggest carmaker, has opened more than 200 across the country, selling electric and hybrid cars. In Pará, a huge state dominated by farms and rainforest, BYD plans to open four new spaces next year alone, said Machedo. In November, the company began producing cars at its first Brazilian factory — on the site of a former Ford plant. On an average day on Machedo’s lot, two or three cars get sold. On Saturdays, when he hires a DJ and puts out food — what he calls the “BYD experience” — sales often hit double digits. BYD — marketed under the slogan “Build Your Dreams” — has become one of the top selling brands in the country in just two years. BYD’s growth in Brazil is a sign of a rapidly shifting world. For the past 150 years or more, the world’s energy system was dominated by fossil fuels. Clean energy and electrification have given that system a competitor. “This is a turn of events that have a deep historical [and] political meaning” said French philosopher Pierre Charbonnier, author of the recent book Towards the Ecology of War, in which he explores this new paradigm. “It means that it is possible to build power, influence, standing, security on a … ground that is not fossil fuel anymore.” The United States is the world’s largest fossil fuel producer, which makes the growth of green energy a threat to the country’s economic power and other forms of global dominance. To make matters worse for the United States, China is by far the dominant force in the clean energy space. Trump officials have sought to mitigate this threat by dissuading other countries from pursuing clean energy. “Climate and geopolitics are the two sides of the same thing,” said Charbonnier. For a country like Brazil, this new world affords them the opportunity to play both sides. China is Brazil’s largest trading partner. But the U.S. is still its biggest investor. Brazilian officials have been trying to ease tensions with the White House over a jail term handed to Trump ally and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s predecessor Jair Bolsonaro for a Jan. 6-style coup attempt in 2023. “We [are] quite clear that we don’t want to choose sides. We really want to make business with both of them and to have good relations with both of them,” said a Brazilian government official close to Lula, who was granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly. On the other side, the benefits of working with China are clear. Getting local factories is a key part of Brazil’s strategy for harnessing Beijing’s enormous global clean energy ambitions. Long before China arrived with its electric cars, Brazil — a country of 213 million people — insisted that access to its market for European and American companies required homegrown manufacturing, said Tim Sahay, co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University. “This is Brazil’s playbook that other countries would do well to adopt for their own green development goals” he said. Building the clean energy manufacturing sector at home not only secures employment, but skills and technical expertise. Great Wall Motors, another large Chinese automaker, also opened a new plant in Brazil this year. The Chinese wind turbine maker Goldwind is expanding in the country, too. This is coming even as some Western manufacturers leave town after sustaining big losses, with some reports blaming high tax, labor and logistics costs. “They were closing those big factories,” said the Brazilian official, “causing huge unemployment. And now we have the Chinese willing to come and open these big electric car factories and they have all the support of President Lula because they’re moving the economy, generating jobs, usually in poor areas in Brazil.” Other countries are also seizing the opportunity. Since 2022, Chinese companies have announced plans to invest at least $227 billion in green manufacturing projects outside the country, according to a report co-authored by Sahay. It’s a staggering number that the researchers pointed out compared favorably in scale to the U.S. post-war reconstruction funding in Europe under the Marshall Plan. China’s project is equally, if not more, ambitious: to reconstruct the global energy system. And the benefits go far beyond jobs. Clean cheap energy from solar panels can help make energy affordable to more people and in remote places. It can also build new industrial centers, allowing countries that have been focused on resource extraction to shift toward higher-value, and in some cases less polluting, industries. Chinese firms have poured money into battery projects in Indonesia and Hungary and, in the Gulf, manufacturing for solar and green hydrogen. In Pakistan, the gas price crisis unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set in motion an unplanned solar power boom, with Chinese panels blossoming on factory roofs and homes across the country. On the opening day of COP30, the Brazilian diplomat running the talks, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, praised China for “lowering the price of all these essential elements in the transition. If the solar panel now costs 90 percent less than a few years ago, much more people in the developing world can afford them. You need less resources to get this done.” The U.S. is doing its best to counter these dynamics. A contrast between BYD’s fortunes in Mexico and Brazil shows how the U.S. can and will use its leverage. Mexico was, until recently, BYD’s largest overseas market thanks to liberal trade policies. In September, after pressure from the Trump administration, Mexico said it would raise a 50 percent tariff on Chinese cars. A planned BYD factory project there has also stalled. The auto industry is “really the battleground for a lot of these superpowers competing in Mexico,” said Rolando Fuentes, an energy professor at the EGADE Business School in Monterrey. Meanwhile, Europe is caught in the middle, and the political realities of clean industry could not be further from those in Brazil. The continent has in no way embraced the fossil fuel boosterism of the U.S. under Trump, but the conversation on climate has been wrapped into a broader tale of industrial decline, high energy prices and anxiety about Europe losing its place as a leading industrial producer. The EU is deeply concerned about its clean energy sector, which has lost market share and whole industries to China. Distressed automakers are concerned about the influx of Chinese electric cars, and the EU has raised tariffs on them. But this has a cost. Trade barriers against Chinese electric vehicles in favor of its own automakers makes cutting emissions more expensive. “From a climate perspective” one of the biggest threats to global progress is “the decision by some countries not to deploy cheap, readily available clean technologies,” said Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Washington-based Asia Society Policy Institute. Here in Brazil, on the other hand, the story of climate change is at least partly one of hope. The drive in the BYD Dolphin had to be short. Machedo needed to return to party planning. I asked him about whether recent cultural and political tensions with the United States meant that Brazilians were biased toward Chinese cars. He was confused. Brazilians don’t care about things like that, he said. People still want “confident” American brands like Chevrolet and Ford, he said, because Brazilians “have that mongrel syndrome” — a phrase Brazilians use to describe their collective sense of inferiority compared to the rest of the world. “But today this is changing.” Back in the showroom, they were playing Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York — one of Trump’s favorite songs. There was little else that would have pleased the president’s ear. Zia Weise contributed reporting from Belém.

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM — Sometimes the metaphors deliver themselves, dripping in flame retardant foam. So it was in Belém, Brazil, on Thursday when a fire briefly engulfed an events stand at the annual United Nations climate talks. The scenes of a summit supposed to stop the planet burning, halted by an actual inferno, reinforced the sense that things are almost cosmically stacked against the global climate conferences, which bring delegates from the world’s almost 200 countries together every year. “What the fuck are we even doing here?” asked a European government official, nursing a caipirinha at a riverside bar halfway through the two-week conference held in a city on the banks of the Amazon delta. It’s a question increasingly being asked at U.N. climate talks. But it was perhaps more true of this edition, COP30, than any of its predecessors in the 33-year history of the international talks. The meetings have typically been used for three key purposes: to set new international law; to act as a huge clean energy trade fair; and to serve as a barometer signaling to investors how much politicians are likely to back green policies in the coming years. But the process is running out of laws to negotiate. The landmark Paris Agreement is done — despite Donald Trump pulling the United States out. Which leaves the trade fair, where companies come to make deals and meet potential new contacts. Fine. And then there’s the vibe check. That last part is what countries have struggled with during the past two weeks. What true signal about the state of the world could the conference produce when there were zero delegates in attendance from the U.S., the world’s largest economy and oil and gas producer? Countries entered the talks on the back of a series of underwhelming announcements of new climate plans. A third of the countries ignored the requirement completely. It was the job of this conference to address that deficit. But little of substance took place. At this conference, which was still locked in vitriolic final throes on Friday evening as talks moved past their scheduled end, the U.S. absence allowed a group of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — known as the BRICS —to team up with petrostates, isolating the more green-oriented European Union and refusing to countenance even a reiteration of past deals to end fossil fuels. It felt, delegates said, like part of a larger power shift. Where confident rising powers trod over the interests of a divided West. “This is a BRICS COP,” a European diplomat said. This is a problem. Because when it comes to the real world, the surge in renewable energy electric cars and other clean energy products is undeniably moving the needle. That is especially true in emerging economies, including the host country Brazil, where cheap Chinese technology is spurring new industries and markets. But if the U.N. summits can’t even showcase the best of what is happening on the ground and instead the message is one of ambivalence, then it’s little wonder that most investors simply ignore the final outcomes at the U.N. climate talks these days. Many are calling for these talks to take on a much more practical dimension. “We’re at a bit of a turning point on what happens at COPs,” said Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s former climate envoy. The conferences needed to bring the businesses and investors from the clean tech sector closer into the talks, she said, so there would be “the real doers engaging more with the actual policy makers.” The Brazilian hosts tried to turn the conference from a discussion about setting targets to cut emissions and hollow promises to “transition away from fossil fuels” to something more concrete. Several ideas were discussed to encourage countries to lay out “roadmaps” for winding back the fuels that cause global warming, and for ending deforestation. But these talks quickly got bogged down by the refusal of the wealthy countries at the talks to commit to increasing their level of financial support to help poorer countries deal with their own environmental problems. Without the diplomatic heft and experience of the Americans, there was no country that could break down the resistance from Saudi Arabia, China or India. In lieu of fixing climate change, COP30 pivoted to another goal: Defending multilateralism. Which sounded a lot like agreeing to anything, just to project a sense that the show would go on — a soft repudiation of the U.S. president’s derision for the climate “con job” and his attempts to jolt the world back towards fossil fuels. The disregard is mutual. Throughout Thursday, an unflattering statue of Donald Trump — a U.N. head of state — stood unmolested by the guards at the gates of the U.N. venue. This process faces at least three more years of talks without the elephant in the room. It will need to change — or become further detached from reality. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at kmathiesen@politico.eu or on X (formerly known as Twitter) @KarlMathiesen. 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U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Washington-based Clinton appointee, ordered the tax agency not to disclose the confidential address information of tens of thousands of undocumented taxpayers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement until the court can review the case further. — Ghislaine Maxwell will plead Fifth in House Epstein probe, Comer says: Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted co-conspirator of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, will refuse to answer questions in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Epstein and the Justice Department’s handling of the case, Oversight Chair James Comer said. Maxwell’s legal team said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights if she sat with congressional investigators, the Kentucky Republican said in an interview. — New Jersey may stop paying federal taxes under new governor: Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey is floating the possibility that the state withholds federal tax dollars in protest of the Trump administration. 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Talks in Brussels are now at an extremely delicate stage, diplomats said, as top officials try to finesse a legal text that would enable the frozen funds to be used for a loan to the Ukrainian government. But the United States’ new 28-point blueprint for a ceasefire includes a rival idea for using those same assets for American-led reconstruction efforts once a truce has been agreed. The U.S. would take “50 percent” of the profit from this activity, the document said. STARMER RELENTS — Keir Starmer is set to approve a new Chinese “super-embassy” in central London despite a string of security concerns which were raised through the planning process. The Times reported Friday that intelligence services MI5 and MI6 are now satisfied that the project — long a source of controversy in the U.K. — should go ahead, with some “mitigations” to protect national security. A British government official did not reject the Times reporting when pressed Friday. 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