Hopes for EU–China climate deal centre on a green recovery

(Eco Business, 19 Jun 2020) The 2020 climate agenda was supposed to be all about the European Union and China. Then came the coronavirus. Now what?

When exhausted delegates finally trailed out of the massive convention centre in Madrid last December after the longest UN climate talks in history, it was clear the international climate process was in trouble. Facing a critical 2020 deadline to ramp up global climate action, the world’s major emitters were stalling – or, in the case of the US, exiting the process entirely. But advocates pointed to one ray of hope: a potential agreement between the EU and China. If two of the world’s largest emitters could strike a deal to jointly raise their climate targets, then other countries might do the same, driving a new wave of climate action.

“Bringing together the largest emitter with the continent that has taken on the responsibility of being the icebreaker on this path to climate neutrality could be incredibly powerful,” said Jennifer Tollmann, a policy advisor with the environmental think-tank E3G in Berlin. “You don’t really see any major power alliances in the world that could set that global agenda in the same way.”

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Eco Business, 19 Jun 2020: Hopes for EU–China climate deal centre on a green recovery