The European Union and China must "take on global climate leadership" in the wake of US President Donald Trump's return to the White House, a French government source ahead of a top French official's visit to Beijing on Thursday.
Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France's minister for ecological transition, is slated to meet counterparts on Thursday and Friday in the first visit to China by a French environment minister in five years.
A member of her team said the visit came at a "pivotal moment" on three key themes: the year-end COP30 climate summit in Brazil, the UN Ocean Conference in Nice 9 - 13 June, and negotiations in August in Geneva to forge an international treaty to combat plastic pollution.
"The idea is to see how – given the US withdrawal (from climate leadership) – we can try to build a new convergence between the EU and China on climate," the source said.
The US pull-out from the 2015 Paris Agreement – the second time Trump has taken this step – "leaves these two key players with the responsibility of taking climate leadership," the source added.
The broad-based multilateralism that has driven progress in climate talks to date is under strain, and could fray as other countries review their commitments to curb carbon pollution in light of the Trump administration's position, according to analysts.
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Send strong message
"It is extremely important that China and the European Union send a very strong message," the source said.
A bilateral Sino-US accord in April 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is widely credited with paving the way for the landmark Paris climate treaty signed later that year.
The French minister's visit comes in advance of a Beijing-Brussels summit in China in July, which France has identified as "a good opportunity" to publicly affirm Sino-European leadership on climate issues.
At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, countries committed to transition away from fossil fuels, a promise that saw little progress at COP29 in Baku the following year.
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Pannier-Runacher, who will talk with the Chinese environment and natural resources ministers, as well as former special envoy for climate change Xie Zhenhua, will discuss how to "push this issue" when nations meet in Brazil in November at the COP30 summit, the source said.
(with AFP)
