The European Union and China promised on Thursday to demonstrate joint leadership on driving a “global just transition” and said the “defining color” of their cooperation would be green, in a statement issued after their leaders met in Beijing.
They also confirmed they would submit their updated national climate plans for cutting emissions through to 2035 before the COP30 climate summit in Brazil this November. Those plans, known as NDCs, will cover all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases and align “with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement”, the declaration added.
That goal is to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and make efforts to keep it to 1.5C above pre-industrial times.
While the EU-China statement did not contain any concrete new commitments from either side, climate policy experts welcomed it as reinforcing their willingness to cooperate in the face of the United States quitting international climate action under Donald Trump.
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at climate group 350.org, said the joint statement “offers a timely stabilising signal in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape and the United States’ withdrawal from climate diplomacy”.
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The declaration noted that “in the fluid and turbulent international situation today, it is crucial that all countries, notably the major economies maintain policy continuity and stability and step up efforts to address climate change”.
It added that stronger cooperation between the EU and China “is of great and special significance to upholding multilateralism and advancing global climate governance” while benefiting the well-being of their peoples.
David Waskow, international climate director at the World Resources Institute, said stronger climate leadership from the two major emitters “is critically needed to rekindle global momentum after the US stepped away from the Paris Agreement again”.
The US gave notice in January 2025 that it will leave the Paris pact in a year’s time and has not yet said whether it will participate in the UN climate negotiations at COP30.
Calls for more ambition on both sides
In the run-up to the summit between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top politicians, the Financial Times reported that the EU had held back on signing a joint climate action pledge as it wanted China to show more ambition on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It is unclear how that issue was resolved.
But in response to Thursday’s joint statement, climate policy watchers called on both sides to up their game ahead of COP30.
Coming a day after the world’s top court issued a landmark opinion on states’ legal obligations to protect the climate, Waskow said both the EU and China “have a chance to meet the bar set by the International Court of Justice, which emphasised that climate commitments should reflect their highest ambition possible”.
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This week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invited countries that have yet to submit their new NDCs – more than 160 – to do so during a summit he will host in late September in New York.
So far, the European Commission has publicly proposed a new goal to cut the EU’s net emissions by 90% on 1990 levels by 2040 – but has come under pressure from some member states to allow up to 3% of those reductions to come from paying other countries outside the bloc to lower their greenhouse gas pollution.
China – which alone accounts for a third of global emissions – has a current goal of peaking CO2 emissions “before 2030” and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. It has also pledged to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – a measure known as carbon intensity – by more than 65% below 2005 levels by 2030, but is far off track for that intensity target, partly as its economy has slowed.
Responding to Thursday’s joint statement, Belinda Schäpe, China policy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said China could cut emissions by at least 30% from current levels by 2035, which would double the value of its clean energy industries. The EU, meanwhile, should lower emissions by around 78% below 1990 levels by 2035, she added.
Clean tech overtures?
The two sides also committed jointly to turn their climate targets into “tangible outcomes” and to accelerate global renewable energy deployment, including by providing access to green technologies for developing countries.
In a post on LinkedIn, Schäpe noted that this suggests “a willingness to move beyond tit-for-tat clean tech tensions”. “If both sides can manage China’s dominance and co-develop resilient supply chains, it would be a game-changer for the global energy transition,” she wrote.
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Yao Zhe, Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing-based global policy advisor, said this remained a difficult question in the relationship, with Europe needing to preserve its industrial competitiveness while the energy transition requires China to deliver clean technology at scale around the world.
“Finding the right balance is key to future EU-China cooperation,” Zhe said in a statement. “But across any potential solutions, engagement remains a necessary step.”
