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

European companies are still paying vastly more for energy than they would in the U.S. or China, a new analysis has found, a year after a landmark report warned inaction would condemn the continent to economic stagnation. The findings come on the anniversary of the publication of a report by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, which found the EU was lagging behind rivals as a result of expensive power and gas, hampering firms’ competitiveness internationally. According to the new findings from the influential Center for the Study of Democracy think tank, set to be unveiled Tuesday in Washington, European countries have become more exposed to energy price shocks, with indicators surging more than fivefold in the past three years. “A year after Draghi called for stronger EU energy markets, our data shows affordability risks remain high, with retail prices still 40–70 percent above pre-crisis levels in much of Central and Eastern Europe,” said Martin Vladimirov, one of the report’s authors. Affordability is now by far the greatest threat to the EU’s energy resilience, outstripping the uncertainty created by Russia’s weaponizing of energy flows, by the climate transition and by system reliability. “It affects not only citizens’ trust, but also the capacity of businesses to compete globally,” the Center for the Study of Democracy assessment cautions. “For Europe to succeed in the next phase of its energy transition, it must ensure that clean energy is not only available, but accessible and economically viable for all.” Vulnerabilities in one domain also risk spilling over into others, adding to the major and often historical divides that already exist between EU countries, the report cautions. If the bloc fails to address the gulf between countries’ energy security, it threatens to entrench regional inequality and undermine its economic sovereignty and climate goals, it warns. In his report last September, Draghi wrote that “EU companies still face electricity prices that are 2-3 times those in the US. Natural gas prices paid are 4-5 times higher. This price gap is primarily driven by Europe’s lack of natural resources, but also by fundamental issues with our common energy market.” One key recommendation was a massive program of state and private investment in aging power grids, which experts warn are inefficient and a key source of extra costs. His inquiry called for €584 billion in additional funds for electricity infrastructure by 2030, and up to €2.29 trillion by 2050. It is unclear how much of that funding will be made available, but EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen has been tasked with planning an overhaul of Europe’s grids, to be presented later this year. However, one source of reassurance for officials will be the declining levels of exposure to geopolitical risk after efforts to diversify away from Russian oil and gas. Jørgensen has presided over the introduction of a new plan to phase out imports from the country by 2028, with new suppliers ramping up production to meet demand.

France and Germany on Friday agreed to better integrate their energy markets and find common ground on EU green laws as part of a sweeping bilateral reset following years of bitter feuding over energy policy. The EU’s two biggest economies gave their political backing to a new cross-border power line and the long-stalled “Southwestern” hydrogen pipeline network connecting Spain, Portugal, France and Germany at a ministerial meeting in Toulon, also attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The summit comes after years of friction between the countries over energy policy, including regarding subsidies for energy-intensive industries and nuclear power. Now, an agreement at the 25th Franco-German Council of Ministers “seeks to reconcile policy differences and promote joint initiatives that can serve as a model for broader EU collaboration,” according to a press release. The new “economic agenda” — spanning defense, industrial and digital policy — includes a pledge to conduct a joint study with Poland by 2026 on optimizing grid investments, and collaborate more closely on electricity-related rules such as network charges in order to lower energy prices. Notably, the two capitals also vowed to “establish a cooperative working process” on efforts to slash red tape for businesses and align their climate policies. In practice, that “might” lead to joint proposals to amend existing EU energy laws, the statement continued. It also addresses upcoming legal targets for 2040 that promote “non-discrimination among all … low-carbon energy technologies” — a common euphemism for nuclear power. France, which relies heavily on atomic energy, has long fought for nuclear to take a more prominent role in EU climate goals. In recent months, Paris pushed Brussels to adopt a renewables target for 2040 that also includes nuclear — an effort EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen has so far resisted.

President Donald Trump’s campaign to shake up international institutions has a new aim: upending the leadership of a Paris-based agency whose data and research help shape global energy policy. The 32-country International Energy Agency has increasingly rankled Republicans in Washington by producing analyses that point to a waning future for fossil fuels and a need to embrace wind and solar power. Now the Trump administration is demanding that the agency replace its No. 2 leader with someone more aligned with the president’s policies, multiple energy industry insiders and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO’s E&E News. The IEA’s second-ranking position has traditionally been filled by an American. Its current second-in-command, retired career State Department diplomat Mary Warlick, has served in the role since 2021. The new pressure from Washington follows months of Trump’s efforts to bend global power centers to his will, including through his trade wars, his demands for higher defense spending by NATO members and his withdrawals from bodies such as UNESCO and the World Health Organization. It also follows months of public complaints about the IEA from top Trump administration officials, most notably Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has vowed to make changes at the body or end U.S. support. Some Republicans say the IEA has discouraged investment in fossil fuels by publishing analyses that show near-term peaks in global demand for oil and gas. “The product that the IEA produces is not generally accepted by everybody. It’s just not,” said Mark Menezes, who served as deputy Energy secretary during Trump’s first term. “And the political context has changed.” ‘FIGHT FROM THE INSIDE OUT’ The Trump administration is aiming to push changes internally, according to a Republican energy lobbyist with close ties to the Department of Energy. “They want to get operatives in there, whether they’re career or political, who can actually move the needle,” said the lobbyist, who like the others familiar with the U.S. efforts was granted anonymity to speak freely. “They’re going to get someone they trust and that person is going to fight from the inside out.” Regarding the U.S. effort to pressure the IEA, the lobbyist said: “The fact that Wright is out there now talking about it publicly shows that it’s elevated.” House Republican appropriators are also lashing out against the IEA by pushing legislation to withdraw U.S. funding starting Oct. 1. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, and an Energy Department spokesperson did not respond directly to questions posed by E&E News. The IEA said in a statement that it “does not disclose information about individual staff contracts due to reasons of privacy and confidentiality.” A former U.S. official who worked closely with the IEA called Warlick a “hardworking, serious, diligent and capable professional” who does her work in a way that is consistent with guidance from the executive director and with guidance from the member countries. The U.S. helped establish the IEA following the 1973 Arab oil embargo to focus on energy security. Today, the organization publishes influential energy market forecasts and data that guide major investments and government policies. Many of those studies have conflicted with the White House’s insistence that fossil fuels are more reliable and often cheaper than wind, solar and other clean energy sources. Leaving the IEA would lessen U.S. influence or input on its work. Historically, the United States has wielded a lot of influence at the agency and has been able to work with other member governments to advance its mission, said Jonathan Elkind, a former assistant secretary for international affairs at DOE during the Obama administration. “There are going to be certain elements of policy that the current U.S. administration really disagrees with other member countries on, and the U.S. administration is entirely within its rights to advocate for adjustments in the agenda of the IEA,” Elkind said. “The U.S. does not have the right to simply insist that everybody will change as a consequence of what the U.S. has done.” Threatening to pull out of the IEA is “misguided and myopic,” said Amanda Maxwell, managing director of global engagement at the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. “Unfortunately, it’s par for the course for the Trump administration to try and ignore objective data,” Maxwell said. “Whether it’s climate science or energy trends, this administration is trying to make us less informed about the world we live in.” ROSY SCENARIOS Wright has been especially critical of the IEA’s projection that oil demand will peak this decade, calling it “nonsensical” in a Breitbart interview in June. Republicans also bristled at the Biden administration’s use of IEA analysis in 2024 to justify a U.S. decision to pause consideration of new liquefied natural gas export permits. In testimony at a Senate hearing last year, David Turk, then-deputy Energy secretary under Biden, cited IEA findings that showed global natural gas demand on the decline. The Trump administration is now betting heavily on the opposite occurring — pushing for a huge increase in U.S. natural gas exports and using trade pressure to cajole allies into buying massive amounts of the fuel, though some market analysts have expressed doubts about the realities of those hopes. The IEA has also said that no new oil and gas projects are compatible with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which aims to limit the rise in global temperatures to less-than-catastrophic levels. Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from that pact on the first day of his second term. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and then-Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), now retired from Congress, wrote in a letter to IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in March 2024 that the IEA has strayed from its mission and become a “cheerleader” for the “energy transition.” Birol has defended the organization’s commitment to energy security while acknowledging that its mission has broadened. Meanwhile, Trump ordered the State Department in February to do a six-month review of U.S. participation in international organizations and treaties and recommend leaving those that don’t serve his priorities. One point of contention is the IEA’s World Energy Outlook, a lengthy annual report that dissects global trends and related impacts on energy security and greenhouse gas emissions. IEA calls it the “most authoritative global source of energy analysis and projections.” In 2020, the IEA abandoned a portion of the outlook, known as the “Current Policies Scenario,” that analyzed the global energy picture based on existing national energy policies. Trump officials have criticized the IEA for replacing the current policy analysis with a “Stated Policies Scenario,” which multiple Republicans and fossil fuel supporters say is based on policies that aren’t being implemented. The critics say the change paints a rosier-than-justified picture of global trends toward lower-carbon energy sources. IEA officials are pledging to resurrect the Current Policies Scenario this year. “As ever, the forthcoming World Energy Outlook 2025 will contain multiple scenarios reflecting the wide spectrum of possible outcomes that today’s market conditions and policies imply,” an IEA spokesperson told E&E News. “This year’s edition will include the Current Policies Scenario, which will illustrate the implications of a continuation of policies and measures currently in place.” Warlick, the IEA’s deputy executive director, spent decades at the State Department, including as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Serbia from 2010 to 2012 and as the National Security Council’s senior director for Russia under George W. Bush. From 2014 to 2017, Warlick was the State Department’s principal deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of Energy Resources and represented the U.S. on the IEA governing board. Trump administration officials in DOE’s Office of International Affairs, which is led by acting Assistant Secretary Tommy Joyce, tried to pressure the State Department into signing off on pushing Warlick out in March, according to a former State Department official. At the time, State prevented that from happening, but since then a broad reorganization of the department has eliminated its Bureau of Energy Resources and most of the officials there who worked closely with the IEA. That could mean DOE would face little resistance if it tries again. In recent IEA meetings, POLITICO has reported, U.S. officials have pushed for the organization to stop publishing data that they argue promotes the shift to clean power over fossil fuels. Just how the U.S. would force the agency to replace Warlick isn’t entirely clear. She is on a limited contract, and while the U.S. is an important member of the IEA, providing around 14 percent of the organization’s budget in recent years, it isn’t the only one. Warlick rarely speaks publicly. At an Atlantic Council event in 2022, she said that the uneven pace of clean energy investments among countries has caused “geopolitical fragmentation” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Such investment is still well below the level needed to bring [greenhouse gas] emissions down if we are to keep net-zero and sustainable development goals in sight,” Warlick said. “Massive investment in clean energy is the best guarantee of energy security in the future, and it will also drive down harmful greenhouse gas emissions.”

For decades, the only meaningful deals China struck with any other nation to reduce its enormous output of greenhouse gases were with the world’s other largest polluter, the United States. Now, the European Union is trying to break into that club.  Six months ago, the Donald Trump administration cut U.S. ties to the Paris climate agreement, reneging on past deals with Beijing.  That left a huge gap. The world’s two top-polluting countries had for many years set the course for the rest of the world — albeit at a pace far too slow to avoid warming the planet to catastrophic levels.  Even in the hours before its leaders were to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, there was no guarantee of a deal. But on Wednesday afternoon EU diplomats were told the statement would go ahead, according to one of those informed, who was granted anonymity in order to discuss the talks. If an agreement comes, there’s no certainty it will be meaningful. Regardless, experts say a joint statement between the leaders of the EU and China, being floated for Thursday’s summit, could be a much-needed boost for jittery clean energy markets and give political confidence to other nations’ governments to further cut their own emissions. “This is a moment the EU and China cannot afford to miss,” said Ireland’s former President Mary Robinson, a prominent voice in climate diplomacy. “EU-China climate cooperation can help steady markets, accelerate the clean energy transition and show that even in a moment of division, climate action remains one of the surest paths to resilience.” On Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, presidents of the European Commission and European Council — which writes the bloc’s legislation and represents the national leaders, respectively — will meet Xi and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing for talks including on security, economics and trade. The relationship is not ripe for dealmaking and there is little prospect for fruitful discussions on any of these topics, with trade tensions in particular driving the two sides apart.  In fact, climate is the only topic where there appears to be any hope of an outcome beyond thin-lipped smiles.  Beijing wants a “comprehensive agreement” on trade, economics and beyond from the leaders’ summit, said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. But failing that, “at least a climate one.”  CHANGING EQUATION During the first Trump administration, the EU struggled to step into the role of China’s climate interlocutor. Those talks were restricted by the EU’s own internal divisions and lack of diplomatic clout, as well as China’s unwillingness to step into the role of global leader and the expectation that Trump was an aberration. A decade later, Trump is back in the White House, and some things have changed.  For one, China doesn’t need convincing that climate efforts are in its national interest. China’s clean technology economy has surged, with exports of products such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles “becoming key growth drivers for the Chinese economy,” said Belinda Schäpe, a China policy analyst with the Finland-based nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.  That has a positive effect on the climate. According to analysis by the website Carbon Brief, Chinese clean technology exports reduced global emissions by around 1 percent in 2024.   Schäpe said the EU is an “important market” for Chinese products, which are often cheaper. That gives China more incentive to deal with the EU. It also feeds into the trade tensions that are upsetting the rest of the EU-China talks, with Europeans fearful that China’s state subsidies will lead to a flood of cheap products displacing manufacturers in the EU. On top of that, earlier this year, China extended export controls on critical minerals needed for the production of many clean technologies.  That showed China was “willing to strike where it hurts when geopolitics demand it,” said Byford Tsang, a senior policy fellow with the Asia program at the pan-European think tank European Council on Foreign Relations.  “Before signing up for a closer climate partnership with Beijing, Europe should ask whether it is ready to accept the terms and conditions of relying on China Inc. for its energy transition.” BURNISHING CHINA’S IMAGE A deal would boost China’s attempts to position itself as the anti-Trump locus of global affairs, and a supporter of the United Nations and multilateralism. “In an increasingly turbulent international landscape with rising unilateralism and protectionism,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told the press on Tuesday, the summit was “good not only to our two sides, but also to the world as a whole.”  An agreement with the EU on global warming would make the U.S. look isolated and reckless, boosting China.  Such a statement would draw a sharp contrast “against the U.S. withdrawal” from the Paris deal, said Schäpe. As well, it shows China can work with Europe “despite the situation with Russia” and Beijing’s tacit support for its war in Ukraine.  “It makes China look like the more responsible actor,” Schäpe added. The EU doesn’t want to hand China that win for nothing.  The two camps have held intense talks for months in the hope of brokering a joint leaders’ statement this week.  That includes a two-day summit earlier in July between Chinese ministers and EU commissioners in Beijing. The two sides tangled over the EU’s demand for China to make real commitments, either on cutting down pollution or curtailing its coal use, according to an EU official who was granted anonymity to discuss the substance of the talks.  “China was a very challenging mission,” said a separate Commission official, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy as they are not authorized to speak publicly.  The EU and China are both expected to submit new targets for reducing emissions until 2035 ahead of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil in November. The EU is especially keen for China to give a signal that its goal will be a step up from its current promise to peak emissions by 2030.  Western diplomats have pressured Beijing to promise a cut of more than 30 percent below the peak by 2035.  But the EU’s leverage has been undermined by its own slow process for entering a pledge, with the process for doing so mired in political controversy. “The problem is,” said Li, “when it comes to substance, the European side has very clear demands on Chinese climate action — but its own climate politics is backfiring big time at home.” SEEKING LOW-HANGING FRUIT Joint climate statements have previously been the sole domain of the “G2” — China and the U.S, the two largest polluters and economies.  Together, the pair accounts for around 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions every year, with China making up the bulk at roughly 30 percent.  Throughout the three-decade history of international climate diplomacy, economic and superpower competition between Beijing and Washington meant neither wanted to restrict or shift its economic model without a sign that the other would as well. A major breakthrough came in 2014, when Xi and Barack Obama made a deal to cut their pollution. That agreement laid the foundation for the Paris Agreement, struck a year later. In 2022, the two superpowers also agreed to cut release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for almost one-third of global warming since the industrial revolution. The “Sunnylands Statement” — named for the California estate where it was signed — sidestepped the thorniest issues to find lower value, but still important, places for accord.  This could serve as the template for an EU-China deal, said Li. There may be room for cooperation on building out renewable energy, reining in nitrogen oxide pollution, financing climate efforts in poorer countries and on carbon pricing frameworks underway in both countries. They might even revisit the moribund U.S.-China deal on methane. Li suggested they could also look to make a deal on the “sticking points” around the COP30 climate talks. Those include agreeing to avoid messy fights between the big economies that might derail the talks, a rolling dispute over the EU’s carbon border tax, how to extend a past global pledge on moving away from fossil fuel use or funding a new anti-deforestation initiative.  But EU officials have been watering down such expectations. “If finally there is a joint statement, it will be an important step forward,” said the Commission official. “In this critical situation I’d say that the victory it’s the joint statement itself.” Zia Weise contributed to this report from Munich.