The European Union – once the undisputed champion of emissions reduction – is now betting on a more transactional approach to climate finance, direct outreach to big emitters abroad, and a changing of the guard to make a comeback on the global scene.
A disastrous COP30 summit last year saw things get so bad for the EU’s negotiating team that its leader went public with his complaints. In the end, a face-saving ‘sidestep’ deal was struck, but Europe left Brazil with its tail between its legs, vowing to do better next time.
Now the EU is planning fixes on three fronts: no more ‘free’ climate aid money for poorer countries, better planning, and some new staff.
“We should be more transactional in our conversation with external partners,” Poland’s deputy climate minister Krzysztof Bolesta said in Brussels on Tuesday. “We are the main climate aid provider.”
He was right. Europe provides roughly a third of global climate finance
France has come out swinging, with a concrete proposal on where to apply the bloc’s new “more transactional” approach. India, one of the world’s largest emitters, has yet to submit a 2035 climate target.
Under the EU’s new trade deal, New Delhi could be in line for €500 million in green transition funding.
“I am not in favour of such funding until India submits a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) … and it adopts a slightly different approach towards the European Union in climate negotiations,” France’s environment minister, Monique Barbut, told the news agency AFP.
Germany’s environment minister, Carsten Schneider, called it a “matter of give and take” in Brussels. Few major developing countries had fought on Europe’s side to push for more climate action at COP30, in the Amazonian port city of Belém. “I was disappointed,” Schneider said.
Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who led the EU’s delegation to Brazil and will do so again in Turkey this autumn for COP31, told reporters that “solidarity and reciprocity need to go hand in hand, and if they go too far apart, you always run into trouble”.
Plan longer, plan better
Months after key climate thinkers prescribed a new strategy for the bloc, it looks like their advice is finally sinking in.
One EU diplomat described a “shared understanding” of the need for “more, better, earlier planning” and broader approach to outreach – with a particular look to ‘BICS’ – a collection of fast-growing economies sans Russia (which is fighting a pitiless land war in Europe and was never particularly interested in climate action).
Better planning also means overcoming the problem that the EU’s negotiating mandates tend to be decided shortly before the annual COP gatherings – and are often perceived as being out of touch with reality.
“We are developing a … three-year strategy across successive COPs to clarify priorities … and red lines,” a senior EU diplomat told reporters. The Irish environment minister who will chair the Council of the EU during the bloc’s negotiations on its COP31 priorities, told Euractiv they want the bloc to agree on a common position much earlier than usual.
New guard
Beyond conditional aid and holding meetings earlier in the year, however, the EU is also looking at a total rebuild of its negotiating team.
Jacob Werksman, who became the bloc’s lead negotiator in 2012 and later went on to also head the delegation to the annual UN conferences, is resigning from his position. Leaving alongside him is Martín Hession, who for ten years headed the sub-delegation negotiating rules on carbon markets.
“These people were not in tune with the new policy direction,” explained a source with knowledge of behind-the-scenes talks in Brussels.
Werksman said his resignation was long-planned and voluntary. His second-in-command, Dimitrios Zevgolis, is currently acting as the interim lead negotiator.
His departure does, however, solidify a trend identified by all long-term watchers of the process: negotiating climate treaties is so last decade.
“The Paris Climate Agreement has, in a sense, been ‘negotiated to completion’ – it now comes down to implementation,” explained Ottmar Edenhofer, the EU’s climate advice chief and head of leading research institute PIK.
Linda Kalcher at think tank Strategic Perspectives said all three elements must come together if the bloc is to have a shot at regaining command of global talks. “The EU doesn’t just need a change of players, it needs a multi-year strategy and to rebuild strong alliances to regain its influential position.”
(rh, aw)
