While many are still in shock over Donald Trump’s announced climate policy reversals, the US climate community has not been idle in recent weeks and months: We explain how researchers and federal states plan to resist the new president. In Germany, too, setbacks are on the horizon: As part of our fact check series on the German parliamentary elections, Lukas Knigge looks today at what lies behind the calls to reverse the combustion engine phase-out.
A glance at China is also only partly encouraging: Nico Beckert explains why the country is expanding renewables at record speed while simultaneously burning more and more coal for the chemical industry.
We also look at new figures on emissions in animal husbandry, a new label for green cement and present the president of the COP30 in Brazil.
The de facto ban on new cars with combustion engines from 2035 is a thorn in the side of both the CDU/CSU and the FDP. Yet the FDP in the German government had voted in favor of the reformed EU fleet limits for 2023 after the Commission had agreed to add a backdoor for e-fuels. Now calls for the withdrawal of the combustion engine ban are growing louder to avoid placing an additional burden on the already struggling German car manufacturers. This is because the ramp-up of electromobility and the charging infrastructure is not progressing as quickly as hoped, and Asian and US manufacturers have long since overtaken the Europeans in the EV market. The end of new vehicles with combustion engines threatens to put additional pressure on sales figures in Europe.
This is why the FDP and CDU/CSU want to reverse the de facto combustion engine ban and are calling for a technology-neutral approach to achieving the climate targets in the transport sector. This includes ensuring that electric cars are no longer the only emission-free vehicles and that combustion engines can continue to be operated with e-fuels.
The combustion engine ban is based on the EU fleet regulation. It specifies how much car manufacturers must reduce the emissions of their vehicle fleet on average. A 100 percent reduction in emissions compared to 2021 levels is planned for 2035 – a de facto ban.
The Commission could bring forward the review of the CO2 fleet regulation planned for 2026 and review as early as this year how drastic the effects of the law are for the automotive industry and whether a revision is necessary. There are two options for withdrawing and softening the combustion engine ban:
In both cases, it would be harder for the transport sector to meet its emission reduction targets. The EU’s 2030 target of a 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would also be jeopardized. In other words, reversing the phase-out of combustion engines would come at the expense of the climate.
So far, the EU Commission has taken the approach that if measures to reduce emissions are scaled back, they must be compensated for elsewhere. This means that if the combustion engine ban is reversed, more emissions would have to be reduced in other areas.
As far as planning security is concerned, it would be detrimental to European car manufacturers if the ban on combustion engines were to be withdrawn. After all, it has been a law for two years; both manufacturers and suppliers have begun to adapt to it – albeit often begrudgingly. Manufacturers who have already developed an all-electric strategy would suffer most from the back and forth, as they have already planned their investments for the current regulatory framework.
For example, Ford intends to stick to its plans to completely decarbonize its own fleet. The company supports the combustion engine phase-out and has invested two billion US dollars in its plant in Cologne to develop and build the next generation of electric vehicles. Nevertheless, Ford calls for greater German involvement in Brussels to ensure more flexibility in meeting EU emissions targets “without jeopardizing the long-term goal of 2035.”
The German Association of the Automotive Industry also describes the electrification of drive systems as a “key contribution to net-zero mobility,” but advocates a technology-neutral approach. The VDA insists that Brussels brings forward its review of the law and examines which different solutions are appropriate for different regions on the net-zero pathway. According to a VDA spokesperson, this also applies to the future of the combustion engine.
However, if the phase-out of the combustion engine is reversed, there is a fundamental risk of a lack of investment in the further development of the combustion engine for electrification. And it is also entirely unclear whether e-fuels will be sufficiently available and, above all, affordable to replace fossil fuels. Moreover, the forecast quantities of hydrogen are urgently needed elsewhere. Sectors such as heavy industry, aviation and shipping need hydrogen and hydrogen-based e-fuels more urgently, as there is no alternative to fossil fuels.
An ordinary legislative procedure would be necessary. The EU Commission would have to propose a revision of the CO2 fleet regulation and either withdraw or soften the de facto ban on combustion engines in 2035. The EU Parliament and member states could then negotiate changes, initially internally and later jointly in a trilogue.
Depending on where the EPP seeks its majority in Parliament, a reversal of the ban in the EU Parliament is theoretically possible. However, the Christian Democrats would have to seek this majority outside the von der Leyen coalition with the Social Democrats and Liberals. This is because, except for the German FDP, the European Liberals (Renew) support the end of the combustion engine. The Social Democrats, Greens and Left are largely united in their opposition to softening the fleet limits. However, as the EPP can form a narrow majority with the three right-wing groups, as it has already done in the past, it could push through far-reaching amendments because the far-right also supports the reversal of the ban.
EPP-led governments also have a majority in the Council, although a blocking minority could prevent an agreement. Depending on which governing coalition comes to power in Berlin, the coalition partner of a potential CDU/CSU government could refuse the vote – Germany would have to abstain in the Council. In this case, a blocking minority would be likely.
Reversing the combustion engine phase-out has been a core objective of the CDU/CSU for years, while the FDP position is somewhat contradictory due to its former government participation. However, technological openness is now part of the Liberals’ identity. At the legislative level, reversing it seems possible, but the Christian Democrats would probably have to pay a high price for it by cooperating with the far-right. To complicate matters further, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as well as Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera and Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, have so far upheld the adopted law. Only the Commission can formally propose a withdrawal.
Economically, it is questionable whether German manufacturers would benefit from the reversal or not, as there are doubts whether the combustion engine has a future at all, given the lack of options to make it truly climate-neutral. Non-EU manufacturers have already gained market shares in the European EV market, especially thanks to affordable models. The U-turn on the end of the combustion engine threatens to set Europe back even further in this market.
On the other hand, the charging infrastructure must be expanded further to make the electric car an equal alternative to the gasoline car. “What is lacking in Germany is an unambiguous, clear political agenda to promote electromobility, such as the expansion of the charging infrastructure, the reintroduction of purchase incentives and lower electricity prices to reduce the operating costs of electric vehicles,” Ford argues.
Over the past year, China has installed over 350 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity, once again breaking all records. But while the energy sector is making progress, China’s chemical industry jeopardizes the country’s climate targets. The sector’s coal consumption has risen rapidly in recent years.
The government is promoting the use of coal as a raw material and energy source in the chemical industry to provide coal producers with a second mainstay, secure the country’s energy security and become less dependent on oil and gas imports. The sector’s emissions could thus continue to rise beyond 2030 – although China aims to have reached peak emissions by then. The coal-based chemical industry “poses a significant environmental challenge, as emission intensities are considerably higher than in natural gas-based production,” writes the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Due to the rapidly rising coal consumption, China’s chemical industry has become one of the main drivers of the country’s CO2 emissions:
The central government and the provinces have been actively promoting the use of coal in the chemical industry. China’s central government has designated the coal-based chemical industry as a strategic sector: The industry is one of the “new productive forces” introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2023 and is expected to help modernize China’s economy. Although the sector is not one of the high-tech industries, it is “too important to sacrifice,” China expert Cory Combs from the consulting agency Trivium China told Table.Briefings. As a “new productive force,” the industrial sector will receive “strong policy support,” especially to boost demand, according to Combs. “The industry’s short-term growth prospects are positive.”
Since its designation as a “new productive force,” several directives have been issued to promote the “clean and efficient use of coal” and “accelerate the development of strategic industrial clusters for the production of oil and gas from coal.”
China aims to achieve several goals by increasing the use of coal in the chemical industry:
China explicitly excludes the sector from certain climate targets: Coal emissions not used for electricity production but as a raw material for chemical processes are not included in China’s emission targets for reducing CO2 emissions and the CO2 intensity of growth. Analysts say this exception “aims to protect China’s chemical industry from the pressure of decarbonization.”
China’s coal provinces and coal industry consider the chemical industry an ideal supplementary customer alongside coal-fired power plants, which are expected to consume less coal in the medium term. Encouraged by the central government’s subsidies, the provinces and coal producers have invested tens of billions of euros in the chemical industry. According to analysts, 75 coal-based chemical projects are currently under construction or development in 15 of China’s 27 provinces and autonomous regions. Coal consumption in the chemical industry could therefore more than triple to over one billion tons.
However, this development is not guaranteed. The massive expansion of the coal-based chemical industry could also create overcapacity. In 2023, profits in the industrial sector already declined by 40 to 50 percent due to falling demand. Nevertheless, observers assume that the sector’s emissions will continue to rise in the medium term.
Now that Donald Trump has taken office and declared his intention to largely withdraw from national and international climate policy, counter-strategies are emerging from the climate community: Alongside legal action, progressive US states such as California are relying on their own climate action regulations. Many voices stress the economic benefits of climate action. They hope the new administration will listen to their economic arguments rather than facts about environmental conservation and international responsibility.
For example, Simon Stiell, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, warned when Trump took office: “The global clean energy boom – worth 2 trillion USD last year alone and rising fast – is the economic growth deal of the decade.” Those who participate in it can expect “massive profits, millions of manufacturing jobs and clean air.” Those who ignore will send “all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse.”
Debbie Weyl of the think tank WRI’s board of directors says Trump’s plans would “sacrifice the United States’ competitiveness globally, raise energy prices for American families, and pollute our air.” Rolling back climate policies that have created 400,000 well-paying jobs will hurt workers and the economy.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and researchers make similar arguments. Christoph Bals from Germanwatch measures Trump’s actions against his promises: He says the president wants to make the USA safer, but is doing the opposite when it comes to “the biggest security risk, climate change.” He wants to make heating and transport cheaper, but is relying on fossil fuels, “which are competitively inferior to renewables.” He wants to strengthen the USA but is “throwing hurdles in the way of his companies in the global competition for future industries.”
Researchers and companies have begun to rebrand their activities, as they did during Trump’s first term in office. Instead of renewables, the term “clean technologies” is now being used more frequently. The focus will be on technologies such as CCS and nuclear power. Geoengineering, for example, in space, will also become more important, “considering the role of his whisperer Elon Musk and his already dominant position in US space travel,” says Wilfried Rickels from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Safety arguments override ecological benefits, and health projects avoid the term “climate change” when discussing the risks of excessive heat.
Progressive governors and mayors, however, currently have less of a tailwind to openly challenge Trump’s policies, particularly on environmental issues. Some of Trump’s fiercest opponents are more exhausted than outraged. Climate change hardly played a role in the election in November, not even among the Democrats. Their candidate Kamala Harris boasted about the USA’s leading role in oil and gas extraction and planned to promote fracking.
California, on the other hand, wants to oppose Trump once again. With a gross domestic product of 3.9 trillion US dollars, the state would be the fifth-largest economy in the world if it were its own country, making it a powerful opponent. Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats have recently allocated 50 million US dollars to legally challenge Trump’s potential deportation laws and provide legal and financial aid to migrants. The state is also seeking more lawsuits against oil companies that have misled the public about climate change and exacerbated plastic pollution. Newsom himself is already being floated as a frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election and is likely looking to build on his environmental successes.
Newsom knows that what California is doing is being adopted across much of the country. For example, the state is exempt from federal air quality regulations that allow it to set stricter car emissions standards – and 17 other states, which account for more than half of the US car market, have also set their own benchmarks. In 2022, California also became the first state to set a phase-out date for the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, which means California is pushing ahead with one of the country’s most important climate policy measures.
During his first term in office, Trump tried to revoke California’s special rights. Several Republican-led states and some business associations also filed lawsuits to block California’s EV subsidy plans. It is not clear whether Trump will try to undermine these regulations again. Federal courts have long upheld California’s vehicle regulations, but now more judges are sympathetic to Trump and could end up deciding whose policies continue. However, the automotive industry does not favor sudden regulatory changes either, and some companies have expressed support for the California emissions limits.
But there are also limits. California regulators have withdrawn their request to the Environmental Protection Agency, which would have allowed the state to enforce new regulations to promote electric trucks and trains. They feared they would not receive approval before Trump took office. The head of the California Air Resource Board, Liane Randolph, said: “Withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs.”
Nevertheless, numerous environmental policy measures are out of the White House’s reach. Currently, twelve states have set a carbon price. Many states, including Republican states, have also received billions of dollars under the Inflation Reduction Act for promoting clean energy and efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Trump will have a hard time rolling back these funds.
Moreover, clean technologies such as wind and solar energy have become so cheap that they are becoming the main new energy sources – even in Republican-led states that do little to combat climate change. Although Texas has the most oil and gas production, it also generates the most wind energy and leads the nation in solar installations. Meanwhile, coal energy continues to decline. This means that US greenhouse gas emissions are also likely to fall under Trump, albeit not as quickly as under a Democratic president. States like California will likely continue to send their own delegations to global climate conferences in an effort to reassure other countries that parts of the US remain committed to curbing climate change.
On the other hand, Trump has indicated that he is willing to use his power to punish states that don’t do his bidding. Former advisers said he wanted to withhold disaster relief for California during his first term until he learned how many Trump supporters lived there. With the current wildfires in Los Angeles, several Republicans in Congress have now declared that they want to attach political conditions to the relief funds.
One of their main aims is to abolish the principles of diversity, equality and inclusion. They have also expressed their disdain for the state’s environmental, social and governmental policies. In 2023, California passed a law requiring companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change vulnerability.
Republicans in Congress, in turn, passed a bill last year that would prohibit pension fund managers from considering ESG criteria in their investments. The Trump administration will also likely restrict the Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulations on disclosing climate data.
What is uncertain is whose side the economy will take in this battle. Some large companies have begun to voluntarily disclose their emissions and climate risks. On the other hand, some billionaires have started building closer relationships with Trump, including founders from the Californian tech industry. Whom and what companies support will play a pivotal role in determining the US’s future contribution to the fight against climate change.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appointed Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago president of the next COP 30. It will take place in November in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon region.
65-year-old Corrêa do Lago is Secretary of State for Climate, Energy and Environment in the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of the most experienced Brazilian diplomats in climate negotiations. An economist, he has been a diplomat since 1983 and has been negotiating climate and sustainable development for 25 years. He has been Brazil’s chief negotiator at all international environmental meetings since the start of the Lula administration, whether on climate, biodiversity or desertification.
There are big challenges ahead. The first is the urgency of the climate crisis. The second, of course, is the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. “We can’t give up,” he said in his first interview as COP30 president. He described Trump’s decision as “a significant shift in the stance of the American government and certain economic sectors,” but noted that the US is a country with many facets, “ranging from the federal government to science, business, universities, and subnational governments (…). We are still studying how we can constructively engage with these various dimensions.”
Another stalemate is climate finance, a topic that is holding up climate conferences. In Baku, it was established that COP30 will negotiate the Baku-Belém roadmap for 1.3 trillion USD in climate financing by 2035. He says he will work on this task together with finance ministers, central banks and multilateral banks, a path he has already traveled during Brazil’s presidency of the G20. “We will continue this work because transitioning to 1.3 trillion USD is an immense challenge.” He also thinks of creating councils of economists, climate justice experts and scientists. Corrêa do Lago is an aggregating personality.
During Brazil’s G20 presidency, he was one of the organizers, together with Environment Minister Marina Silva, of the successful efforts to include climate issues in the G20 agenda of finance ministers and central bank governors.
“COP30 will not be a COP like the others,” he said in the same interview. “We have to restore confidence that the COP is not just a negotiation of documents.” The Brazilian presidency wants to make COP30 a conference of action, for implementing decisions that have already been taken.
In recent months, his name was being floated for the COP 30 presidency alongside others. Some sectors of civil society and indigenous groups favored giving the COP presidency to Marina Silva, a black woman of humble origins, born in the Amazon and known worldwide. Silva, however, doesn’t speak English, the language of power at international conferences, and perhaps wouldn’t have the schedule available for the amount of travel that the position of COP president requires.
Diplomats, in the Brazilian system, are career civil servants. Getting into Itamaraty – the name of the building that houses the Ministry and is one of architect Oscar Niemeyer’s masterpieces – is not easy. It requires deep knowledge of geopolitics and history, as well as fluency in several languages. Corrêa do Lago is one of the most experienced and skillful staff, and has the trust of Brazil’s strategic ministries, the private sector, environmentalists and scientists. And Lula.
The COP30 President-designate is also known in the diplomatic world for his height and sense of humor. When complaining about an inflexible negotiator from another country whose positions run against those of Brazil, Corrêa do Lago joked, “And he’s also annoyingly taller than me.”
He was born in Rio de Janeiro and graduated as an economist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He is the grandson of politician, diplomat and lawyer Oswaldo Aranha and the brother of writer, curator and collector Pedro Corrêa do Lago, important names in Brazilian politics and culture.
A diplomat since 1983, he began negotiating sustainable development and climate change in 2001. He was Brazil’s chief climate negotiator from 2011 to 2013, the period in which Rio 92 celebrated its 20th anniversary and Brazil hosted Rio+20. The idea of the world creating Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, was born on that occasion.
At Rio+20 he sought to bring the focus of development to the table, with economic, social and environmental pillars. He said that the conference’s focus could not be taken away by making it only environmental. At the time, the clash between developed and emerging countries over limits to growth was clear.
From 2013 to 2018, Corrêa do Lago was Brazil’s ambassador to Japan and then to India, a post he held until 2023. He has published books and articles on sustainable development and climate change, but his passion is architecture. He was the first Brazilian to be invited to sit on the jury for the Pritzker Prize in 2017 and is a member of the architecture and design committee at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “One of the 17 SDGs is about changing consumption patterns and the way of life, which has become more accumulative,” he said in an interview about architecture in 2021 when he was in New Delhi. “And architecture has an essential role to play in this, to find more intelligent solutions to the issue of climate change.” Daniela Chiaretti
While many are still in shock over Donald Trump’s announced climate policy reversals, the US climate community has not been idle in recent weeks and months: We explain how researchers and federal states plan to resist the new president. In Germany, too, setbacks are on the horizon: As part of our fact check series on the German parliamentary elections, Lukas Knigge looks today at what lies behind the calls to reverse the combustion engine phase-out.
A glance at China is also only partly encouraging: Nico Beckert explains why the country is expanding renewables at record speed while simultaneously burning more and more coal for the chemical industry.
We also look at new figures on emissions in animal husbandry, a new label for green cement and present the president of the COP30 in Brazil.
The de facto ban on new cars with combustion engines from 2035 is a thorn in the side of both the CDU/CSU and the FDP. Yet the FDP in the German government had voted in favor of the reformed EU fleet limits for 2023 after the Commission had agreed to add a backdoor for e-fuels. Now calls for the withdrawal of the combustion engine ban are growing louder to avoid placing an additional burden on the already struggling German car manufacturers. This is because the ramp-up of electromobility and the charging infrastructure is not progressing as quickly as hoped, and Asian and US manufacturers have long since overtaken the Europeans in the EV market. The end of new vehicles with combustion engines threatens to put additional pressure on sales figures in Europe.
This is why the FDP and CDU/CSU want to reverse the de facto combustion engine ban and are calling for a technology-neutral approach to achieving the climate targets in the transport sector. This includes ensuring that electric cars are no longer the only emission-free vehicles and that combustion engines can continue to be operated with e-fuels.
The combustion engine ban is based on the EU fleet regulation. It specifies how much car manufacturers must reduce the emissions of their vehicle fleet on average. A 100 percent reduction in emissions compared to 2021 levels is planned for 2035 – a de facto ban.
The Commission could bring forward the review of the CO2 fleet regulation planned for 2026 and review as early as this year how drastic the effects of the law are for the automotive industry and whether a revision is necessary. There are two options for withdrawing and softening the combustion engine ban:
In both cases, it would be harder for the transport sector to meet its emission reduction targets. The EU’s 2030 target of a 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would also be jeopardized. In other words, reversing the phase-out of combustion engines would come at the expense of the climate.
So far, the EU Commission has taken the approach that if measures to reduce emissions are scaled back, they must be compensated for elsewhere. This means that if the combustion engine ban is reversed, more emissions would have to be reduced in other areas.
As far as planning security is concerned, it would be detrimental to European car manufacturers if the ban on combustion engines were to be withdrawn. After all, it has been a law for two years; both manufacturers and suppliers have begun to adapt to it – albeit often begrudgingly. Manufacturers who have already developed an all-electric strategy would suffer most from the back and forth, as they have already planned their investments for the current regulatory framework.
For example, Ford intends to stick to its plans to completely decarbonize its own fleet. The company supports the combustion engine phase-out and has invested two billion US dollars in its plant in Cologne to develop and build the next generation of electric vehicles. Nevertheless, Ford calls for greater German involvement in Brussels to ensure more flexibility in meeting EU emissions targets “without jeopardizing the long-term goal of 2035.”
The German Association of the Automotive Industry also describes the electrification of drive systems as a “key contribution to net-zero mobility,” but advocates a technology-neutral approach. The VDA insists that Brussels brings forward its review of the law and examines which different solutions are appropriate for different regions on the net-zero pathway. According to a VDA spokesperson, this also applies to the future of the combustion engine.
However, if the phase-out of the combustion engine is reversed, there is a fundamental risk of a lack of investment in the further development of the combustion engine for electrification. And it is also entirely unclear whether e-fuels will be sufficiently available and, above all, affordable to replace fossil fuels. Moreover, the forecast quantities of hydrogen are urgently needed elsewhere. Sectors such as heavy industry, aviation and shipping need hydrogen and hydrogen-based e-fuels more urgently, as there is no alternative to fossil fuels.
An ordinary legislative procedure would be necessary. The EU Commission would have to propose a revision of the CO2 fleet regulation and either withdraw or soften the de facto ban on combustion engines in 2035. The EU Parliament and member states could then negotiate changes, initially internally and later jointly in a trilogue.
Depending on where the EPP seeks its majority in Parliament, a reversal of the ban in the EU Parliament is theoretically possible. However, the Christian Democrats would have to seek this majority outside the von der Leyen coalition with the Social Democrats and Liberals. This is because, except for the German FDP, the European Liberals (Renew) support the end of the combustion engine. The Social Democrats, Greens and Left are largely united in their opposition to softening the fleet limits. However, as the EPP can form a narrow majority with the three right-wing groups, as it has already done in the past, it could push through far-reaching amendments because the far-right also supports the reversal of the ban.
EPP-led governments also have a majority in the Council, although a blocking minority could prevent an agreement. Depending on which governing coalition comes to power in Berlin, the coalition partner of a potential CDU/CSU government could refuse the vote – Germany would have to abstain in the Council. In this case, a blocking minority would be likely.
Reversing the combustion engine phase-out has been a core objective of the CDU/CSU for years, while the FDP position is somewhat contradictory due to its former government participation. However, technological openness is now part of the Liberals’ identity. At the legislative level, reversing it seems possible, but the Christian Democrats would probably have to pay a high price for it by cooperating with the far-right. To complicate matters further, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as well as Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera and Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, have so far upheld the adopted law. Only the Commission can formally propose a withdrawal.
Economically, it is questionable whether German manufacturers would benefit from the reversal or not, as there are doubts whether the combustion engine has a future at all, given the lack of options to make it truly climate-neutral. Non-EU manufacturers have already gained market shares in the European EV market, especially thanks to affordable models. The U-turn on the end of the combustion engine threatens to set Europe back even further in this market.
On the other hand, the charging infrastructure must be expanded further to make the electric car an equal alternative to the gasoline car. “What is lacking in Germany is an unambiguous, clear political agenda to promote electromobility, such as the expansion of the charging infrastructure, the reintroduction of purchase incentives and lower electricity prices to reduce the operating costs of electric vehicles,” Ford argues.
Over the past year, China has installed over 350 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity, once again breaking all records. But while the energy sector is making progress, China’s chemical industry jeopardizes the country’s climate targets. The sector’s coal consumption has risen rapidly in recent years.
The government is promoting the use of coal as a raw material and energy source in the chemical industry to provide coal producers with a second mainstay, secure the country’s energy security and become less dependent on oil and gas imports. The sector’s emissions could thus continue to rise beyond 2030 – although China aims to have reached peak emissions by then. The coal-based chemical industry “poses a significant environmental challenge, as emission intensities are considerably higher than in natural gas-based production,” writes the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Due to the rapidly rising coal consumption, China’s chemical industry has become one of the main drivers of the country’s CO2 emissions:
The central government and the provinces have been actively promoting the use of coal in the chemical industry. China’s central government has designated the coal-based chemical industry as a strategic sector: The industry is one of the “new productive forces” introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2023 and is expected to help modernize China’s economy. Although the sector is not one of the high-tech industries, it is “too important to sacrifice,” China expert Cory Combs from the consulting agency Trivium China told Table.Briefings. As a “new productive force,” the industrial sector will receive “strong policy support,” especially to boost demand, according to Combs. “The industry’s short-term growth prospects are positive.”
Since its designation as a “new productive force,” several directives have been issued to promote the “clean and efficient use of coal” and “accelerate the development of strategic industrial clusters for the production of oil and gas from coal.”
China aims to achieve several goals by increasing the use of coal in the chemical industry:
China explicitly excludes the sector from certain climate targets: Coal emissions not used for electricity production but as a raw material for chemical processes are not included in China’s emission targets for reducing CO2 emissions and the CO2 intensity of growth. Analysts say this exception “aims to protect China’s chemical industry from the pressure of decarbonization.”
China’s coal provinces and coal industry consider the chemical industry an ideal supplementary customer alongside coal-fired power plants, which are expected to consume less coal in the medium term. Encouraged by the central government’s subsidies, the provinces and coal producers have invested tens of billions of euros in the chemical industry. According to analysts, 75 coal-based chemical projects are currently under construction or development in 15 of China’s 27 provinces and autonomous regions. Coal consumption in the chemical industry could therefore more than triple to over one billion tons.
However, this development is not guaranteed. The massive expansion of the coal-based chemical industry could also create overcapacity. In 2023, profits in the industrial sector already declined by 40 to 50 percent due to falling demand. Nevertheless, observers assume that the sector’s emissions will continue to rise in the medium term.
Now that Donald Trump has taken office and declared his intention to largely withdraw from national and international climate policy, counter-strategies are emerging from the climate community: Alongside legal action, progressive US states such as California are relying on their own climate action regulations. Many voices stress the economic benefits of climate action. They hope the new administration will listen to their economic arguments rather than facts about environmental conservation and international responsibility.
For example, Simon Stiell, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, warned when Trump took office: “The global clean energy boom – worth 2 trillion USD last year alone and rising fast – is the economic growth deal of the decade.” Those who participate in it can expect “massive profits, millions of manufacturing jobs and clean air.” Those who ignore will send “all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse.”
Debbie Weyl of the think tank WRI’s board of directors says Trump’s plans would “sacrifice the United States’ competitiveness globally, raise energy prices for American families, and pollute our air.” Rolling back climate policies that have created 400,000 well-paying jobs will hurt workers and the economy.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and researchers make similar arguments. Christoph Bals from Germanwatch measures Trump’s actions against his promises: He says the president wants to make the USA safer, but is doing the opposite when it comes to “the biggest security risk, climate change.” He wants to make heating and transport cheaper, but is relying on fossil fuels, “which are competitively inferior to renewables.” He wants to strengthen the USA but is “throwing hurdles in the way of his companies in the global competition for future industries.”
Researchers and companies have begun to rebrand their activities, as they did during Trump’s first term in office. Instead of renewables, the term “clean technologies” is now being used more frequently. The focus will be on technologies such as CCS and nuclear power. Geoengineering, for example, in space, will also become more important, “considering the role of his whisperer Elon Musk and his already dominant position in US space travel,” says Wilfried Rickels from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Safety arguments override ecological benefits, and health projects avoid the term “climate change” when discussing the risks of excessive heat.
Progressive governors and mayors, however, currently have less of a tailwind to openly challenge Trump’s policies, particularly on environmental issues. Some of Trump’s fiercest opponents are more exhausted than outraged. Climate change hardly played a role in the election in November, not even among the Democrats. Their candidate Kamala Harris boasted about the USA’s leading role in oil and gas extraction and planned to promote fracking.
California, on the other hand, wants to oppose Trump once again. With a gross domestic product of 3.9 trillion US dollars, the state would be the fifth-largest economy in the world if it were its own country, making it a powerful opponent. Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats have recently allocated 50 million US dollars to legally challenge Trump’s potential deportation laws and provide legal and financial aid to migrants. The state is also seeking more lawsuits against oil companies that have misled the public about climate change and exacerbated plastic pollution. Newsom himself is already being floated as a frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election and is likely looking to build on his environmental successes.
Newsom knows that what California is doing is being adopted across much of the country. For example, the state is exempt from federal air quality regulations that allow it to set stricter car emissions standards – and 17 other states, which account for more than half of the US car market, have also set their own benchmarks. In 2022, California also became the first state to set a phase-out date for the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, which means California is pushing ahead with one of the country’s most important climate policy measures.
During his first term in office, Trump tried to revoke California’s special rights. Several Republican-led states and some business associations also filed lawsuits to block California’s EV subsidy plans. It is not clear whether Trump will try to undermine these regulations again. Federal courts have long upheld California’s vehicle regulations, but now more judges are sympathetic to Trump and could end up deciding whose policies continue. However, the automotive industry does not favor sudden regulatory changes either, and some companies have expressed support for the California emissions limits.
But there are also limits. California regulators have withdrawn their request to the Environmental Protection Agency, which would have allowed the state to enforce new regulations to promote electric trucks and trains. They feared they would not receive approval before Trump took office. The head of the California Air Resource Board, Liane Randolph, said: “Withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs.”
Nevertheless, numerous environmental policy measures are out of the White House’s reach. Currently, twelve states have set a carbon price. Many states, including Republican states, have also received billions of dollars under the Inflation Reduction Act for promoting clean energy and efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Trump will have a hard time rolling back these funds.
Moreover, clean technologies such as wind and solar energy have become so cheap that they are becoming the main new energy sources – even in Republican-led states that do little to combat climate change. Although Texas has the most oil and gas production, it also generates the most wind energy and leads the nation in solar installations. Meanwhile, coal energy continues to decline. This means that US greenhouse gas emissions are also likely to fall under Trump, albeit not as quickly as under a Democratic president. States like California will likely continue to send their own delegations to global climate conferences in an effort to reassure other countries that parts of the US remain committed to curbing climate change.
On the other hand, Trump has indicated that he is willing to use his power to punish states that don’t do his bidding. Former advisers said he wanted to withhold disaster relief for California during his first term until he learned how many Trump supporters lived there. With the current wildfires in Los Angeles, several Republicans in Congress have now declared that they want to attach political conditions to the relief funds.
One of their main aims is to abolish the principles of diversity, equality and inclusion. They have also expressed their disdain for the state’s environmental, social and governmental policies. In 2023, California passed a law requiring companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change vulnerability.
Republicans in Congress, in turn, passed a bill last year that would prohibit pension fund managers from considering ESG criteria in their investments. The Trump administration will also likely restrict the Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulations on disclosing climate data.
What is uncertain is whose side the economy will take in this battle. Some large companies have begun to voluntarily disclose their emissions and climate risks. On the other hand, some billionaires have started building closer relationships with Trump, including founders from the Californian tech industry. Whom and what companies support will play a pivotal role in determining the US’s future contribution to the fight against climate change.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appointed Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago president of the next COP 30. It will take place in November in Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon region.
65-year-old Corrêa do Lago is Secretary of State for Climate, Energy and Environment in the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of the most experienced Brazilian diplomats in climate negotiations. An economist, he has been a diplomat since 1983 and has been negotiating climate and sustainable development for 25 years. He has been Brazil’s chief negotiator at all international environmental meetings since the start of the Lula administration, whether on climate, biodiversity or desertification.
There are big challenges ahead. The first is the urgency of the climate crisis. The second, of course, is the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. “We can’t give up,” he said in his first interview as COP30 president. He described Trump’s decision as “a significant shift in the stance of the American government and certain economic sectors,” but noted that the US is a country with many facets, “ranging from the federal government to science, business, universities, and subnational governments (…). We are still studying how we can constructively engage with these various dimensions.”
Another stalemate is climate finance, a topic that is holding up climate conferences. In Baku, it was established that COP30 will negotiate the Baku-Belém roadmap for 1.3 trillion USD in climate financing by 2035. He says he will work on this task together with finance ministers, central banks and multilateral banks, a path he has already traveled during Brazil’s presidency of the G20. “We will continue this work because transitioning to 1.3 trillion USD is an immense challenge.” He also thinks of creating councils of economists, climate justice experts and scientists. Corrêa do Lago is an aggregating personality.
During Brazil’s G20 presidency, he was one of the organizers, together with Environment Minister Marina Silva, of the successful efforts to include climate issues in the G20 agenda of finance ministers and central bank governors.
“COP30 will not be a COP like the others,” he said in the same interview. “We have to restore confidence that the COP is not just a negotiation of documents.” The Brazilian presidency wants to make COP30 a conference of action, for implementing decisions that have already been taken.
In recent months, his name was being floated for the COP 30 presidency alongside others. Some sectors of civil society and indigenous groups favored giving the COP presidency to Marina Silva, a black woman of humble origins, born in the Amazon and known worldwide. Silva, however, doesn’t speak English, the language of power at international conferences, and perhaps wouldn’t have the schedule available for the amount of travel that the position of COP president requires.
Diplomats, in the Brazilian system, are career civil servants. Getting into Itamaraty – the name of the building that houses the Ministry and is one of architect Oscar Niemeyer’s masterpieces – is not easy. It requires deep knowledge of geopolitics and history, as well as fluency in several languages. Corrêa do Lago is one of the most experienced and skillful staff, and has the trust of Brazil’s strategic ministries, the private sector, environmentalists and scientists. And Lula.
The COP30 President-designate is also known in the diplomatic world for his height and sense of humor. When complaining about an inflexible negotiator from another country whose positions run against those of Brazil, Corrêa do Lago joked, “And he’s also annoyingly taller than me.”
He was born in Rio de Janeiro and graduated as an economist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He is the grandson of politician, diplomat and lawyer Oswaldo Aranha and the brother of writer, curator and collector Pedro Corrêa do Lago, important names in Brazilian politics and culture.
A diplomat since 1983, he began negotiating sustainable development and climate change in 2001. He was Brazil’s chief climate negotiator from 2011 to 2013, the period in which Rio 92 celebrated its 20th anniversary and Brazil hosted Rio+20. The idea of the world creating Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, was born on that occasion.
At Rio+20 he sought to bring the focus of development to the table, with economic, social and environmental pillars. He said that the conference’s focus could not be taken away by making it only environmental. At the time, the clash between developed and emerging countries over limits to growth was clear.
From 2013 to 2018, Corrêa do Lago was Brazil’s ambassador to Japan and then to India, a post he held until 2023. He has published books and articles on sustainable development and climate change, but his passion is architecture. He was the first Brazilian to be invited to sit on the jury for the Pritzker Prize in 2017 and is a member of the architecture and design committee at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “One of the 17 SDGs is about changing consumption patterns and the way of life, which has become more accumulative,” he said in an interview about architecture in 2021 when he was in New Delhi. “And architecture has an essential role to play in this, to find more intelligent solutions to the issue of climate change.” Daniela Chiaretti
