From preacher to player? Europe's ‘Green Realpolitik’ in Belém and beyond

As COP30 in Brazil reaches its final phase, the EU’s newly-minted Global Climate and Energy Vision is enduring its first real-world diplomatic stress test. Pitched as a reconciliation of Europe’s green transition and its economic competitiveness, it marks a strategic shift towards what BIG’s Energy Fellow Thijs Van de Graaf has called ‘Green Realpolitik’: fewer moral appeals, and a greater emphasis on clean industrial partnerships and coalition-building tailored to our increasingly transactional and geopolitical world.

On 18 November, BIG took a step back to assess the bigger picture for the EU’s new approach, exploring the turbulent dynamics of global climate diplomacy as well as the risks and opportunities therein for Europe's climate and energy policies. Is the Union’s geostrategic weakness increasingly evident? Or – as Thijs has argued – will a Europe that ‘acknowledges economic and political constraints’ be better-placed ‘to strike credible bargains, build trust with emerging powers, and prove that climate leadership can coexist with pragmatism’?

Setting the scene was Anthony Agotha, Principal Adviser on Climate Diplomacy at the European External Action Service, who joined the conversation live from the COP30 climate summit in Belém. Observing that negotiations in recent years have concretised many of the provisions first mooted in the Paris Agreement, he remarked on the different dynamic which this prior progress has lent to COP30 – along with the notable absence of an American delegation.

‘We're now at a point in time where basically everything that the Paris Agreement had to deliver was agreed upon. The mechanisms are in place, the initiatives are there, the ambition is set – but we've got to implement. [This year’s COP] was already different from the start. We didn't have this large chunk of negotiation.

‘It's also different because we're without the US, which means that the EU and China are the ones people are looking to for leadership, for better or for worse.’

Yet in light of recent disagreements over emissions targets, a watered-down Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) plan, and the postponement of the EU’s second-generation Emissions Trading System (ETS2), can the Union still legitimately exert the necessary global climate leadership when its own policies are beset by challenges at home? Faced with suggestions of a credibility gap, Mr Agotha was bullish on Europe’s commitments.

‘I would challenge anyone to match our climate finance and match our ambition. The EU is never going to go back to an expensive and erratic fossil fuel economy. It doesn't make economic sense. It doesn't make geopolitical sense. Will we stumble and trip and fall? Sure we will. But the fact that we have such robust debate also gives us so much more legitimacy when we come here to the UN.’

This ‘unapologetic and decisive’ defence was applauded by fellow panellist Ben Gibson, Senior Manager for Geopolitics, Global Regulatory & Public Affairs at Ørsted: ‘Exactly the right tone for the EU when it comes to geopolitics, when it comes to climate change, and all the interrelated issues.’

One such issue is Beijing’s dominance of clean tech industries. Will the infrastructure of Europe’s green transition in fact be ‘made in China’? Not in the case of offshore wind according to Mr Gibson, on the condition that the EU’s new-found strategic vision can be maintained.

‘80 to 95% of major components for offshore wind installations in European waters were produced and supplied by European companies. So when we talk about offshore wind as a homegrown source of energy, it really is. [As for] Chinese components that are used in the supply chain, [we need] clarity and decisiveness around a strategic approach for what is acceptable and what is not in terms of the security risks associated with certain type of components.’

Moving to how the EU can protect and further cultivate this home-grown prowess in offshore wind, Ørsted and other players consider long-term predictability and transparency in commissioning to be vital. The sector has recently called for a ten-year calendar of staged tender procedures which would give the industry the foresight required to plan, upscale, drive down already-falling production costs, and remain competitive with China in the process. Similar clarity from policymakers across other green industries would benefit the entire clean tech sector, he argued.

How is the EU itself reconciling Beijing's crucial role in climate diplomacy with the strategic challenge it poses? Speaking from Belém, Mr Agotha was positive, despite Beijing’s recent critique of the EU’s NDC as ‘underwhelming’. He reported that negotiations with China continue to be constructive, clear and honest: ‘Obviously we do not see eye-to-eye on many different issues [...] but China is here to do business.’

More broadly, the sense from the conversation was that the fault-line is not between competing visions of climate leadership but rather between emergent electro-states ready to ‘do business’ and petro-states acting as blockers, with both the EU and China – as well as hosts Brazil – in the former category. According to Mr Gibson, this is where Europe’s ‘Green Realpolitik’ can come into its own, with mutually beneficial global partnerships among progress-minded states potentially offering resources and capacity for the EU while stimulating clean growth in the Global South.

Solar energy production was cited as a specific example of potential North-South collaboration, with the vast potential of the ‘Solar Belt’ being cited in the IEA’s most recent World Energy Outlook report. The panellists agreed that Europe is failing to match China’s investments in the sector for the time being – although Mr Agotha argued that the EU’s reliability made it an obvious partner for cultivating renewables collaboration of all kinds.

‘We have the rule of law. We have a great internal market infrastructure. We're the biggest global donor because we believe that our partners should do well. We fulfil our treaties and our commitments. What you see is what you get, and we're open for business.’

In a wide-ranging and insightful conversation, a final key theme which emerged was a growing awareness of the climate-security nexus as a driver of climate ambition. Both panellists evoked the myriad ways in which questions of climate and energy have profound geostrategic dimensions – from low water levels on inland waterways affecting shipping, to the exploding carbon footprint of military activity. Mr Gibson described the ‘trilemma of security, competitiveness, and climate’ as a major imperative for a more strategic approach from the EU, as well as an opportunity to depoliticize the green transition within European politics itself.