Transition aligning with energy security and more Chinese climate leadership may reinforce co-operation despite the US withdrawal, writes Georgia Gratton
The UN, IEA and countries including the UK and Brazil — which hosts this year's UN Cop 30 climate summit — stepped up efforts this week to demonstrate common ground and build unity on climate action and the energy transition.
Organisations and countries are looking to capitalise on areas of commonality in order to preserve climate action, as the US administration repeatedly pushes back on measures to tackle climate change and moves to curb the energy transition. A virtual meeting convened this week by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, drew 17 world leaders to commit to keeping climate action a key priority. "Leaders need reassurance that they're not acting alone," a senior UN official says.
"Collaboration and multilateralism still matter," a senior Brazilian official says. Cop 30, which will take place in November in the Amazonian city of Belem, will "have a different dynamic", the official adds. "We want to prove that multilateralism is not only about negotiating documents… but about making them real."
China's president, Xi Jinping, participated in this week's high-level meeting, the UN confirmed. While the US — the world's second-highest emitter — has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, China is continuing to step forward on climate action. It remains the highest-emitting country by some way, but this week reiterated a commitment to a new climate plan for the period to 2035, covering "all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases", Guterres said. The EU this week noted China's co-operation at Cop 29 — where it was widely viewed as projecting leadership on climate — setting the scene for new climate alliances.
While the US government pushes back on clean energy and climate action, support for the energy transition remains strong at sub-national level, from many US state governors, and from the private sector. A poll from three NGOs, including the UK's E3G, this week found that of nearly 1,500 business executives — including in the US — 97pc supported a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The majority of the world has held firm on climate commitments. Heads of state and government of jurisdictions including the EU, several G20 economies and developing nations committed to submitting "ambitious and robust [climate] plans", Guterres said after the meeting.
Renewable security
Organisations and countries have been careful to underline that different national circumstances will mean that jurisdictions take different approaches to tackling climate change. Although this is a key tenet of the Paris agreement, it also remains a bone of contention in multilateral talks. But the co-hosts of this week's energy security summit, the UK government and energy watchdog the IEA, put the issue front and centre.
"Different pathways for different nations should be respected," UK energy minister Ed Miliband told the summit. The almost 60 governments that the UK and IEA hosted will have "different approaches to energy security based on their nation's circumstances and policies", IEA executive director Fatih Birol said. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen reiterated the EU's determination to double down on its energy transition, but also extended a nod to the US for its LNG supply as the bloc pivoted away from imports of Russian gas.
But many note that achieving energy security is well aligned with a transition to renewable energy. The UK's path "is a hard-headed approach to the role of low carbon power as the route to energy security", Miliband said, while the cost of renewable power is now the cheapest option for the majority of the world. "The pathway out of climate hell is paved by renewables," Guterres said.
