China, Europe And UK Should Form Climate Coalition Apart From US, Energy Expert Says

Stay informed with free updates

China, the EU and the UK should form a coalition of “the world apart from the US” on climate action after the retreat under President Trump, the chair of an alliance global companies focused on net zero emissions said.

“To have the most powerful man in the world believe that climate change is a liberal hoax is a big problem,” said Lord Adair Turner, head of the Energy Transitions Commission, which includes member companies such as Shell, BP, HSBC, Iberdrola, ArcelorMittal and Tata Steel.

His remarks followed Trump’s moves to scrap dozens of policies behind green energy development ahead of the launch of an ETC report on the measures needed for buildings to shift to renewable energy systems.

Greater collaboration on low-cost green technologies between the west and China was now needed to limit global warming to the Paris Agreement’s upper target of 2C above pre-industrial levels, Turner told the Financial Times.

“The rest of the world has got to pull together agreements which are as effective as possible without the US,” he said.

The world breached 1.5C of warming last year for the first time, though this is not a breach of the Paris climate agreement target, which refers to an average global temperature over more than two decades.

China is by far the world’s largest emitter on an annual basis but also dominates the sale of electric cars, solar panels and battery storage, as well as supply chains of the critical minerals needed to build them. Some experts expect the country’s emissions to peak this year.

It is “a meritocratic, technocratic, elite system,” Turner said. “You have to start with the presumption that they seriously believe there is a problem.”

Even as geopolitical tensions with China increased under former US president Joe Biden, the two countries continued to engage to limit global warming, Turner noted. The relationship between former US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua was a crucial “motor of negotiations” at UN climate summits in 2021 and 2023.

“There is a danger that the COP (UN conference of the parties) processes lose dynamism as a result of that,” he warned. “And to a degree as best possible EU, UK, China have got to fill that.”

The EU pressed ahead with imposing tariffs of up to 45 per cent on Chinese electric cars last year, after allegations of unfair industrial subsidies by the Chinese state.

Any tariffs on China should also be combined with a “willingness to accept Chinese inward investment in Europe”, Turner said. This could include more industrial tie-ins, such as a possible factory in the UK for Chinese carmaker BYD, or the lithium battery factory that Chinese battery-maker CATL has said it will build with Stellantis in Spain.

One of the crucial areas of contention between big polluters such as China, India, Brazil and the EU is Brussels’ carbon border tax. The so-called Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism penalises exporters for the greenhouse gases they emit during the production of goods such as steel, cement and fertiliser. This plank of EU policy must be “non-negotiable”, and “maybe strengthened”, he said.

In the UK and elsewhere, cheaper Chinese goods could allow politicians to keep populists at bay by helping them make the case that the poorest in society will not have to pay for the EVs and solar panels that will help drive a move away from fossil fuels.

Turner was the first chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, the government’s independent adviser on cutting emissions. The ETC’s latest report highlighted the potential for governments to radically cut emissions from the building sector, including by incentivising the installation of batteries that could help homes store energy from the sun for use at night.