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.”

BRUSSELS — Lawmakers in the European Parliament today adopted a proposal to set a binding EU target for cutting planet-warming emissions by 90 percent by 2040. The text is largely a copy-paste of the position endorsed by EU governments on Nov. 5. It proposes to reduce domestic emissions by 85 percent compared to 1990 level and to allow the EU to outsource 5 percentage points of its climate effort abroad by purchasing international carbon offsets. A majority of members of the European Parliament agreed to back the controversial goal, with 379 casting a vote in favor, 248 against and 10 abstained. The center-left Socialists & Democrats, the liberal Renew Europe, the Greens and the far-left groups as well as part of the center-right European People’s Party supported the adoption of the 2040 climate target. The European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right Patriots of Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups were against. MEPs also approved amendments asking for any carbon credits used to help meet the target to be properly regulated, deliver real emissions cuts, do not contribute to damaging the environment and protect investments in clean technologies in Europe. The legislation will now go through inter-institutional negotiations between the Parliament and the Council of the EU before it can become law.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s environment ministers struck a deal watering down a proposed 2040 target for cutting planet-warming emissions and set a new 2035 climate plan. Following marathon negotiations all day Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, ministers unanimously approved the bloc’s long-overdue climate plan, rescuing the EU from the international embarrassment of showing up empty handed this month’s COP30 summit. The plan, which is a requirement under the Paris Agreement, sets a new goal to slash EU emissions between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent below 1990 levels until 2035. That plan is not legally binding but sets the direction of EU climate policy for the coming five years. The range is similar to an informal statement that the EU presented at a climate summit in New York in September. Ministers also adopted a legally-binding target for cutting emissions in the EU by 85 percent by 2040. The deal mandates that another 5 percent reduction be achieved by outsourcing pollution cuts abroad through the purchase of international carbon credits. On top of that, governments would be allowed to use credits to outsource another 5 percentage points of their national emissions reduction goals. Ministers also backed a wide-ranging review clause that allows the EU to adjust its 2040 target in the future if climate policy proves to have negative impacts on the EU’s economy. The deal also foresees a one-year delay to the implementation of the EU’s new carbon market for heating and car emissions, which is set to start in 2027. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland did not support the 2040 deal, while Bulgaria and Belgium abstained. The rest of the EU27 countries backed it. Lawmakers in the European Parliament now have to agree on their own position on the 2040 climate target and negotiate with the Council of the EU before the target becomes law. 

LONDON — Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party has pledged to ditch the U.K.’s flagship climate law if they get back into government, in the latest signal that the party is firmly walking back on net zero commitments. The Climate Change Act was ushered through parliament under Labour’s last term in power by then Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in 2008. It was backed by consecutive Conservative governments and was even tightened up by former Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019 to make the U.K. ‘s 2050 net zero target legally-binding.  However, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has promised to scrap it, blaming the law for pushing up energy bills and creating bureaucratic delays. “Climate change is real. But Labour’s laws tied us in red tape, loaded us with costs, and did nothing to cut global emissions,” Badenoch said.  The Tory leader has long been critical of climate targets. Earlier this year, she announced plans to ditch the U.K.’s legally-binding 2050 net zero target, as first reported by POLITICO, branding it “impossible.”  The announcement comes amid a fracturing of political consensus on tackling climate change in the U.K., with Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK leading national polls and pledging to scrap net zero policies in their entirety. The Climate Change Act set out a framework for cutting emissions through five-yearly “carbon budget” targets on the way to hitting net zero 2050. It also created the U.K. climate watchdog, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which oversees progress in hitting those goals.  It’s unclear whether the CCC would also be scrapped under Conservative plans — but Shadow Energy Minister Andrew Bowie told POLITICO earlier this year that “everything’s on the table.” He also insisted the party is not “chasing” Reform UK voters.  The Tories have pledged to replace the legislation with a policy which prioritises “cheap and reliable” power. The act is “forcing ministers to adopt policies which are making energy more expensive,” added Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho.  The U.K. overachieved on its first three carbon budgets, while the rate of decarbonisation has more than doubled since the act’s introduction in 2008, according to the CCC.  The Labour government — which has pledged to cut bills and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs through its clean energy policies — doubled down on its stance at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool this week. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch if ever implemented would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations. The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour Government with Conservative support 17 years ago.”

BRUSSELS — For years, the extreme right was content pooh-poohing the European Union’s climate efforts from the back benches. No longer.  On Tuesday, the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament seized control of talks over the bloc’s next emissions-cutting milestone, a surprise move that shocked centrist MEPs.  The Patriots — the political home of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Matteo Salvini’s League and other far-right forces — have called on the EU to “abandon” the European Green Deal, the legislative framework guiding the continent toward climate neutrality by 2050.  Now they will be in charge of drafting the Parliament’s position on the EU’s 2040 interim climate target — and defending that stance in upcoming negotiations with EU capitals. They will also control the Parliament’s timeline, prompting concerns of deliberate delays as the group explicitly stated its resistance to the law.  The Patriots are “resolutely opposed” to the Commission’s recent proposal to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent by 2040, the group’s chairman, Jordan Bardella, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.  “Therefore, we indicated our readiness to work on this report, and we would like to assert our vision,” he said in response to a question from POLITICO. “We are not in favor of declining growth levels. We’re not in favor of abandoning our industrial base and leaving them in the lurch. We are absolutely aware of the very negative and damaging effect of the left and the ecologists, and we want to counter this.”  The reversal comes at a delicate time for Europe’s green agenda, which has faced intense pushback not only from the far right but also from the EPP, the political family of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  | Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA The Patriots’ assertive stance marks a significant shift from the Parliament’s previous term, when far-right MEPs largely restricted themselves to jeering from the sidelines and filing futile amendments to EU climate laws. The group’s ideological allies cheered the news as an unprecedented opportunity to constrain the bloc’s green ambitions.  The reversal comes at a delicate time for Europe’s green agenda, which has faced intense pushback not only from the far right but also from the center-right European People’s Party, the political family of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  The Patriots’ move has backed conservatives into a corner. The EPP has been reluctant to endorse the 2040 target, and was prepared to reject a motion initiated by the Greens to fast-track parliamentary talks on the goal.  Now, however, that motion represents the best shot centrist forces have to curb the far right’s influence.   That’s leaving the EPP with a fateful choice: Either throw its weight behind a fast-tracked target alongside the Greens, Socialists and Democrats, and other centrists — or side with the far right and risk dealing a death blow to von der Leyen’s fragile majority.  FAR RIGHT, NOT SO FAR AWAY The Patriots’ maneuver displays their growing influence in Brussels.  On Tuesday morning, the Parliament’s political groups met to decide who would name the lead MEP, or rapporteur, for the 2040 climate target. That lawmaker gets to draft the Parliament’s stance — although other lawmakers can amend it — and to defend this position in talks with EU governments, as well as to decide on the timeline of discussions.  These leadership roles are handed out through auctions, with each group given points based on their size that they can spend throughout the term. The Patriots simply outbid the other groups.  Centrist and left-leaning MEPs were aghast. The Patriots, they feared, would use this position to delay and sabotage the 2040 target. But they also blamed the EPP — which holds the most points — for failing to outbid the far right.  “They really messed up,” said Lena Schilling, who leads the 2040 target negotiations for the Greens. “There was a bidding process among the coordinators, and the EPP had the chance to go higher than the Patriots did.”  Peter Liese, the EPP’s environmental spokesperson who took part in Tuesday’s meeting, rejected the allegation, saying that other groups had stayed in the bidding process longer than him and could therefore have outbid the Patriots.  Yet the Patriots were only able to bid competitively because the Parliament’s political balance has shifted sharply to the right after last year’s election. The group, founded last year, is the assembly’s third-largest faction, with 85 MEPs, and puts opposition to the Green Deal at the center of its political platform.  On Tuesday, the Patriots’ leadership celebrated the group’s first anniversary while griping about the EU’s climate ambitions.  “It was exactly one year ago, exactly this day, that patriot forces from across the continent joined to form the Patriots for Europe group and became the third-largest group,” said Vice Chair Kinga Gál, speaking alongside Bardella.  “This was,” she added, “a clear refusal [of] the Commission’s disastrous policies in the previous term, including the failed migration pact [and] the harmful policies of the Green Deal.”  Unlike in the previous term, the far right can now form a majority with other right-wing MEPs and the center-right EPP. In recent weeks, this majority established a controversial committee investigating the funding of NGOs — which Bardella described as “beneficiaries of the Green Deal” on Tuesday — and demanded the Commission scrap an anti-greenwashing law.  In contrast, the predecessor of the Patriots, known as Identity and Democracy, had just over 70 MEPs at its peak and few other lawmakers to count on. ID mostly contributed to Green Deal lawmaking by filing copy-paste amendments — never adopted — asking the Commission to withdraw its proposals.  Neither Bardella nor Gál gave details on what the Patriots intend to do with their leadership role. A spokesperson for the Patriots did not respond when asked if the group intends to delay the legislative process. LAST-DITCH EFFORT There’s nothing mainstream groups can now do to strip the Patriots of their leading role on the 2040 climate target. But they can try to restrict the far right’s ability to delay the process.  The Commission is hoping for a lightning-fast passage of the 2040 goal given that the legislation provides the foundation for the bloc’s 2035 climate plan, which is required under the Paris climate accord and is due in September. Countries want to find an agreement by the middle of that month.  The Parliament’s input isn’t required for the 2035 plan, but to pass the 2040 law, governments and MEPs each need to finalize their positions and then strike a deal between the institutions.  To ensure the Parliament is also ready to start interinstitutional talks in the fall, the Greens this week put forward a motion to accelerate the parliamentary process. The EPP, whose membership is divided over whether to support the Commission’s 90 percent target, was poised to reject the motion.  But now, the Greens’ motion has emerged as the only restraint on the Patriots’ influence.  “They can delay and delay and delay the process, and probably act to block the process to keep the 2040 target in the air for months and months and months. That’s the power of a rapporteur,” said Pascal Canfin, the environmental spokesperson for the centrist Renew Europe group.  Under the accelerated procedure, however, the rapporteur doesn’t get to draft a report — speeding up the process and limiting the Patriots’ sway. “It means that we take back control of this file,” Canfin said.  To make it more politically palatable for the EPP to back the fast-tracking procedure, the Greens withdrew their motion on Tuesday so that they could resubmit it alongside the Socialists and Renew, representing more of the political spectrum.  CENTER-RIGHT DILEMMA The Patriots, the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations and the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists are urging the EPP to join them instead.  “There’s a clear majority to at least water down the climate law to address competitiveness and [the] cost of living crisis — if the EPP stands by its own rhetoric. It is time to stop the deindustrialization of Europe,” said Beatrice Timgren, a member of the ECR-affiliated Sweden Democrats.  The far-right Alternative for Germany, affiliated with the Sovereignists, said it would back the Patriots if the group could change the law, not merely delay it: “Europe is shifting, and more parties are starting to realize that ideology must not come before economic survival.” For the EPP, such offers present a dilemma. Large parts of the group are skeptical of the 90 percent target and wish to see it weakened, despite the Commission’s already having given countries more leeway to meet the target than ever before.  But voting against the fast-tracking procedure would be seen by the centrist and left-wing groups as yet another betrayal.  The coalition that secured von der Leyen’s reelection last year — the EPP, the Socialists and Renew — is already fragile. Last month, after the Commission briefly appeared to side with the EPP and the far right in killing an anti-greenwashing law, the other two groups threatened to withdraw their support.  The growing distrust blew up in Monday’s debate over an ECR-led motion of no-confidence in von der Leyen. “Wasn’t it you who joined forces with the radicals to dismantle the Green Deal [and] launch a witch-hunt against environmental NGOs?” Socialist leader Iratxe García Pérez asked her EPP counterpart Manfred Weber.  The confidence vote will be held on Thursday, while the vote to fast-track the climate goal is expected on Wednesday. The EPP was still holding talks over whether to support the motion as of Tuesday evening, and a spokesperson for the group did not respond to a request for comment. Depending on whether the motion passes, the Patriots holding the pen on 2040 “could be very detrimental or marginal,” Canfin said.  “It’s a moment of truth for the EPP,” he added. “Is the EPP ready to kill the 2040 target, teaming up with [the] Patriots? Or is [the] EPP ready to get committed to the 2040 target?”  

BRUSSELS — The pope was dead. And Teresa Ribera was mourning — not only for the man. Pope Francis had embodied an era in which Ribera’s dream of a greener world, shaped by powerful international institutions and scientific advice, had seemed, at last, to be laid down in concrete.  Ten years had passed since Ribera’s highest moment: a year that saw the drafting of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the pope’s landmark environmental proclamation that made the moral case for action.  By the time Francis died in April, Ribera was trying to stop it all from being torn down.  Since arriving in Brussels in December to run the EU’s green and competition policy, she has fought a battle — largely in secret — against opponents who fret that the EU’s efforts to tackle climate change are unaffordable, or that they hand populists an easy win. Her influence shone through this week as the European Commission faced down the French president, discontent from the EU’s largest political force, and the certainty of a far-right backlash to present a new climate goal for Europe.  Ribera pitched the proposed target, an emissions-cutting milestone for 2040, as countering the growing pushback against ambitious climate action.  “For all those challenging the science, hiding the problems, asking to postpone, thinking that the world is going to remain as it is and that the market is going to solve everything … the response coming from Europe is very clear,” she said at a press conference Wednesday.  But political pressure had prompted the Commission to soften the target with concessions to governments, notably a contentious proposal to outsource part of the bloc’s efforts to poorer countries. It was, like Ribera’s first seven months in office, a compromise born of the changed political reality — a reality she has tried to both resist and work within. This account of that time is based on interviews with 11 Commission and government officials, associates of Ribera and close observers of the EU. Many were hesitant to speak to journalists about Ribera, who fiercely values privacy and loyalty, so they were granted anonymity. POLITICO has also interviewed Ribera three times in that span.  Allies and critics alike described Ribera as isolated, lacking political allies amid losses among her fellow social democrats, and facing attacks from outside and inside the Commission. Despite this, they said, she has racked up a series of quiet victories. Pope Francis had embodied an era in which Ribera’s dream of a greener world. | Fabio Frustaci/EPA With populist and illiberal parties incorporating the fight against climate change into their story of grievance, the stakes, as Ribera sees them, are wider than the EU’s green goals. Almost religious. Certainly moral.  “Today, like never before, the green agenda … is being questioned,” she wrote in an emotionally charged letter to El País two days after Pope Francis died. This “counter-reformation,” she added, must be faced down lest the world “return to dark times.” YOU’RE HIRED European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen knew exactly what she was getting when she asked Ribera to protect the EU’s embattled green ambitions.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rammed home the message in a letter to von der Leyen in August 2024, nominating the two-time Spanish minister, former U.N. climate negotiator and policy expert to the Commission. Sánchez touted her “political experience” and “extensive knowledge” of climate change, energy and environmental protection, which he said had won Ribera “great prestige internationally and nationally.” The letter was released to POLITICO under freedom of information laws. Ribera, Sánchez enthused, could “generate consensus and agreements in complex international negotiations.” That was useful for von der Leyen. The European Green Deal — a package of targets and regulations covering almost every sector of the European economy — was a key part of the president’s legislative legacy. Laid down over the previous five years, it not only set a course to end Europe’s contribution to climate change by mid-century, but also sought to rebalance the impact of industry and agriculture on nature. Both von der Leyen and Ribera knew trouble was looming.  The 2024 European election elevated far-right parliamentarians — the very agents of the counter-reformation Ribera believed she was confronting — ensuring that attacks on the green agenda would escalate. And von der Leyen’s own center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the European Parliament’s largest force, had begun to oppose major parts of the package, citing costs to industry and the need to dull the siren call of the political extremes. According to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions and two people briefed on the talks, von der Leyen told Ribera she was choosing her as her first executive vice president — effectively the Commission’s No. 2 — precisely because of her green credentials. Ribera understood her job as boiling down to one overarching mission: Defend the Green Deal.  GETTING TO 90 Von der Leyen’s backing for Ribera showed through during the final frantic talks on the EU’s new 2040 climate goal.  Until Tuesday, the proposed law’s final form — and even its release — remained uncertain.  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen knew exactly what she was getting when she asked Teresa Ribera to protect the EU’s embattled green ambitions. | Jose Manuel Vidal/EPA The target had already been delayed for months as EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, whose work is overseen by Ribera, battled to find the right set of politically viable concessions.  Months of negotiations with governments and parliamentarians led Hoekstra to suggest that the EU stick to the 90 percent cut to emissions that von der Leyen had promised last year, but outsource some of its climate efforts to poorer countries by buying carbon credits. It was a compromise Ribera disliked but eventually accepted. Even with that concession, a groundswell of opposition arose on Monday when the proposal was presented to the rest of the commissioners and their staffs. Ribera and Hoesktra were even battling calls to delay the announcement, after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested a pause during a dinner with EU leaders the week before.  That dinner was “a big moment,” said one EU official familiar with the internal discussions. “It signaled to everyone that big countries aren’t … on the Commission’s side.” During the meal, von der Leyen pushed back against Macron, defending the target and insisting it needed to be proposed that week, three people briefed on the discussions said. She made the same case this week to wavering commissioners, who eventually fell in line on Tuesday. Hoekstra and Ribera got their compromise. IN THE TRENCHES Ribera has fought many such battles over the last seven months.  She has tried to act as a lawyerly guard dog, apprehending Commission papers and ensuring they align with the EU’s previous green commitments.  Ribera has not always had the full backing of von der Leyen, who has been willing to sacrifice a growing number of green regulations to accommodate EPP concerns while trying to preserve core climate goals.  Despite this, Ribera has won significant victories.  In January, an early draft of von der Leyen’s grand second-term economic doctrine — the so-called Competitiveness Compass — contained only a few nebulous green references while stressing deregulation. Ribera intervened to ensure the final version specifically referenced threatened green policy initiatives.  The socialists’ most powerful leader is Teresa Ribera’s political ally, Pedro Sánchez. | Oliver Matthys/EPA A month later, the Commission launched an “omnibus” bill to reduce bureaucratic burdens on companies. The bill watered down green finance rules and corporate reporting standards. But it would have gone even further, leaving key rules entirely voluntary and therefore toothless, had it not been for Ribera’s backroom dealing, POLITICO reported in February.  Ribera also went on to battle behind the scenes to try to salvage a sinking greenwashing law. At the same time, she rebelled against the EU’s public stance on issues such as Gaza, LGBTQ+ rights and migration.  In May, after rumors circulated that von der Leyen was asking commissioners not to attend the banned Budapest Pride, Ribera demonstratively showed up at a press conference on climate progress with a rainbow-striped notebook.  On social media site Bluesky she expressed solidarity with the Hungarian LGBTQ+ community months before von der Leyen finally did. She frequently issues posts highlighting the misery in Gaza, sometimes criticizing Israel outright, as well as Trump’s crackdown on scientific research and universities. She endorsed an op-ed by former Spanish EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell condemning the bloc’s inaction on Gaza, and expressed support for migrant rescuers in the Mediterranean.  When the United States bombed Iran in June, she appeared to mourn the sidelining of the multilateral order, writing: “Decades to build an international order based on the UN charter, human rights and the rule of law.”  THE LADY’S NOT FOR TURNING Ribera’s stand has been a lonely one. She is unambiguously tribal in her socialist politics — notable in a shifting political landscape. During an interview in her offices just after she had moved into the Berlaymont, POLITICO noted a 1970s photograph hanging behind the modernist suite on which the new commissioner sat. On it, then-British opposition leader and bête noire of the U.K. left Margaret Thatcher was taking a meeting on the same settee. Ribera joked that she might swap it for a picture of current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Shortly after, the picture was gone.  The center left is in retreat in Europe. The socialists’ most powerful leader is Ribera’s political ally, Sánchez. But the Spanish prime minister has been weakened by a series of poor election results, a fractious coalition and, more recently, a major corruption scandal. Encouraged, Ribera’s domestic opponents on the right and far right have mounted a savage campaign against her in the press. Election losses have also whittled down the cadre of politicians with whom Ribera championed the Green Deal as a Spanish minister. Gone are allies in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. On the international level, the global order Ribera helped shape is also under profound stress — both from the White House and by populists across the EU. She has tried to tread lightly, withholding any open disdain for U.S. President Donald Trump and his enablers. But she has also not used Elon Musk’s social network X since December.  Wopke Hoekstra, an EPP politician who took over the climate brief in late 2023, was charged with drafting the 2040 target. | Oliver Matthys/EPA “She seemed more tired and frustrated than the last time I saw her,” said a former government official from an EU country who met Ribera recently. Ribera draws on two experiences for perspective in times of adversity. Her long experience of U.N. climate talks, which have seen many setbacks since they began in the 1990s. And her family’s deep romance with the Atlético de Madrid football team — the Spanish capital’s perennial also-rans, who are so often overmatched by the brutal riches of neighbors Real Madrid.  SEEKING FRIENDS Nowhere is the sense of Ribera as a politician trying to hold back the tide stronger than inside the European Commission itself.  She has few allies in the College of Commissioners, the EU’s executive board that oversees the bloc’s legislation. There are just four socialists on von der Leyen’s team of 27 — five if you count Maroš Šefčovič, whose Slovak party has been suspended from the group.  The EPP dominates the college. And the Commission’s proposals have markedly shifted to incorporate right-leaning priorities. While it’s often overstated how much the EU has backtracked on green issues — there is still broad consensus on the need to tackle climate change — the zeitgeist in Brussels, fed by intense corporate lobbying, is all about softening green regulation.  Defense, deindustrialization, deregulation … Donald. These are the “d’s” raising heartbeats in the European capital in 2025. Decarbonization gets a flat line. The Commission argues that its recent reforms have not compromised the Green Deal’s core mission — particularly when it comes to climate. It frames the changes as “simplification,” streamlining overly burdensome requirements. That’s at least partly a euphemism, said François Gemenne, a Belgian political scientist from the HEC Paris business school. “Whatever they might say and proclaim, there is some backtracking at the EU level when it comes to the Green Deal,” he said. Ribera has tried to resist that decline. “She constantly tries to downsize the intensity of the doctrinal shift within the Commission,” a Commission official said of Ribera. It’s an unfashionable place to be “if suddenly your priority as a Commission is to make life easier for businesses [and] she believes more in tight regulation.” Both Teresa Ribera and Wopke Hoekstra’s teams insist they have an amicable and constructive relationship. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA Ribera “has been working in close cooperation with the President,” said Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen in an emailed statement. “No College member works in isolation, politically or otherwise.” As executive vice president, Ribera was given sweeping responsibilities by von der Leyen — but diffused power. She oversees the work of other commissioners when it relates to the Green Deal.  There are two schools of thought about von der Leyen’s intent. In one sense, the structure dilutes Ribera’s power, guarding against the kind of policy fiefdom created by Ribera’s executive vice president predecessor, Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans. On the other hand it means Green Deal decisions come with a cross-party seal, potentially blunting EPP attacks. The shared responsibilities have inevitably bred tensions.  Hoekstra, an EPP politician who took over the climate brief in late 2023, was charged with drafting the 2040 target.  Both Ribera and Hoekstra’s teams insist they have an amicable and constructive relationship. He and Ribera were “basically aligned” on the goal, according to the EU official.  But at least twice, Ribera publicly preempted Hoekstra’s work, telling POLITICO that the final target would be 90 percent and saying it should heed the advice of a scientific advisory board that had just ruled out using international credits to meet the goal. Meanwhile, officials from the climate department, who work for Hoekstra, have not always shared key documents from Ribera’s team. And while Hoekstra is subordinate to Ribera in von der Leyen’s org chart, Hoekstra directs the civil servants working on climate policy.  “The way I see it, Wopke Hoekstra dominates on those issues,” an EPP official said. “Ribera is a bit marginalized in the Commission. Wopke has the EPP commissioners who tend to be on his side, and Ribera, as a social democrat, is pretty much alone.” Nowhere is the sense of Teresa Ribera as a politician trying to hold back the tide stronger than inside the European Commission itself. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA  Yet there the pair was on Wednesday, presenting their 2040 compromise together — Hoekstra in a crooked tie, Ribera unusually contained. Yes, she acknowledged, the surge of public, political (and papal) concern that birthed the Green Deal and the Paris accord was “not the world of today.” But the EU wasn’t retreating, Ribera insisted: “We are here.”  It was the same tone she struck in her April eulogy for Pope Francis — yearning for the recent past, defending the distant future, but mired in the political problems of the present. Karl Mathiesen reported from Brussels and London. Zia Weise reported from Brussels.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission will permit countries to outsource a portion of their climate efforts to poorer countries from 2036, according to a draft proposal obtained by POLITICO. The EU executive plans to present the bloc’s 2040 emissions-reduction target on Wednesday after several months of delay. The goal will be set at 90 percent below 1990 levels, the draft amendment to the European Climate Law shows.  But as POLITICO reported in mid-June, the Commission intends to meet up to 3 percentage points of the new target with international carbon credits, despite fierce criticism from its own scientific advisers. This plan aligns with Germany’s position on the 2040 goal.  Such credits will allow the EU to pay for emissions-slashing projects in other, usually poorer countries, and count the resulting greenhouse gas reductions toward its own 2040 target, rather than the climate goals of the country hosting the project. The draft proposal envisages using them only in the second half of the decade. “Starting from 2036, a possible limited contribution towards the 2040 target of high-quality international credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” — global rules governing carbon credits — “of no more than 3% of 1990 EU net emissions,” the draft states. The Commission aims to propose legislation regulating such credits at an unspecified date, the draft adds. “Their specific role and deployment would need to be based on a thorough impact assessment and subject to the development of Union law setting robust and high integrity criteria and standards, and conditions on origin, timing and use of such credits.” Critics, including the bloc’s scientific advisers, warn that relying even just in part on international credits risks slowing the EU’s climate efforts at home. The EU’s existing 2030 and 2050 targets must be met solely through domestic measures. But the proposal specifically excludes the possibility of integrating credits in the EU’s carbon market, an option that some experts feared could tank the bloc’s CO2 price, which is meant to incentivize companies to reduce their emissions. “These international credits should not play a role for compliance in the EU carbon market,” the draft reads.  Carbon credits are only one of 18 “elements” — effectively, promises to make the target more palatable to skeptical governments — that the Commission plans to integrate into the EU’s post-2030 climate policy framework, according to the draft, which is dated June 27. French President Emmanuel Macron joined Poland and Hungary in demanding delays. | Pool Photo by Benoit Tessier via EPA Others include opening the bloc’s carbon market to permanent CO2 removals — for example through capturing carbon directly from the air, a method as yet unavailable at scale — as well as “enhanced flexibility across sectors.” The remaining promises to EU countries are considerably more vague, with the Commission vowing to pay attention to everything from scientific advice and social impacts to cost-effectiveness and economic competitiveness in its policy framework for 2040. The 2040 target has been met with significant pushback from governments, with many sending Brussels long lists of conditions for supporting the goal. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron joined Poland and Hungary in demanding delays. The Commission in its draft proposal insists that “a 90% target puts the EU on the pathway which provides the greatest overall benefits in terms of competitiveness, resilience, independence, autonomy, a just transition and ensuring that the EU meets its commitments under the Paris Agreement.”