BRUSSELS: Faced with a U. S. retreat from international efforts to tackle climate change, European Union officials are looking to China, fearing a leadership vacuum will embolden those within the bloc seeking to slow the fight against global warming.
While U. S. President Donald Trump has yet to act on campaign pledges to pull out of the 2015 Paris accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions, his swift action in other areas has sparked sharp words from usually measured EU bureaucrats.
When Trump’s former environment adviser, until the president’s inauguration this month, took to a stage in Brussels on Wednesday and called climate experts «urban imperialists», a rebuke from Britain’s former energy minister drew applause from the crowd packed with EU officials.
But with fault lines over Brexit, dependence on Russian energy and protecting industry threatening the bloc’s own common policy, some EU diplomats worry Europe is too weak to lead on its own in tackling climate change.
Instead, they are pinning their hopes on China, concerned that without the backing of the world’s second-biggest economy support for the global pact to avert droughts, rising seas and other affects of climate change will flounder.
«Can we just fill the gap? No because we will be too fragmented and too inward looking,» one EU official, involved in climate talks, told Reuters. «Europe will now be looking to China to make sure that it is not alone. «
The EU’s top climate diplomat Miguel Arias Canete will travel to Beijing at the end of March, EU sources said. Offering EU expertise on its plans to build a «cap-and-trade» system is one area officials see for expanded cooperation.
Enticed by huge investments in solar and wind power in economies such as China and India, Germany, Britain and France are seeking closer ties to gain a share of the business.
