Last month I was asked to contribute to Carnegie’s ‘Taking the pulse’ series. The question was Has Europe Given Up its Leadership on Climate Change?
December 12, 2025 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement adopted at COP21. Rather than celebrating the birth of this landmark climate treaty, COP30 risks serving as its wake. It has become abundantly clear that the agreement’s highest ambition will be missed. For a while, some dared to dream that 2015 would mark a watershed moment when the international community would finally agree to do whatever it takes to avoid dangerous climate change. This has come to be understood as limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5°C. Ten years ago, that was a huge undertaking because there was already little remaining in the so-called global carbon budget. A decade of rising emissions—2024 saw emissions at an all-time high—means that this budget is practically gone. The truth is that no nation made any serious attempt at limiting the temperature rise because it would have required accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels. This includes the EU and its member states: they claim to be leaders in climate action but continue to float vague promises about net-zero. Now, we are heading beyond the 1.5°C target where the consequences of climate change risk impeding our ability to deal with its drivers, entirely derailing the sustainability transition.
I suppose the above could be summarised as: what leadership? The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities means Europe – not just one of the richest regions in the world but also initiator of the large-scale combustion of fossil fuels – needs to (amongst other things) lead decarbonisation. So a global goal of net zero by 2050 translates to a European net zero date much sooner.
Europe still has the potential to lead. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, Europe will need to lead in order for it to continue to exist given we are heading into overshoot.