Hoekstra brushed off the criticism toward his approach, telling an event in Brussels earlier this month, that “we tend to overestimate our ability to, at scale, influence [China’s] decision-making.”
“I’m not convinced at all that if we had tabled something earlier that it would have moved the needle,” he said. But added that, when China is responsible for about 30 percent of global emissions, “if then the response is a 7 to 10 [percent reduction of emissions], it’s really hard, even if you want to make as much of a diplomatic effort as possible, to do as if that is enough.”
A Commission official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said Hoekstra’s team was in discussions with the Chinese over a bilateral meeting ahead of COP30. But that won’t happen in Brazil on Monday because Beijing was not sending a representative of Hoekstra’s ministerial rank, the official said. Canada, China and the EU will lead a ministerial climate summit in Toronto, Ontario at the end of the month, presenting a chance for a meeting.
The climate commissioner’s relationship with China contrasts with that of Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, his direct overseer in the Commission structure. Ribera, a veteran climate diplomat, recently held a meeting with the former Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua in Brussels — an unusual bending of protocol.
In July, after Hoekstra signaled the EU would not sign a joint statement with China unless it showed greater “ambition,” Ribera brokered a deal in which China made no such concession.
Speaking to POLITICO, Ribera emphasized the need for COP30 to project unity against the fossil fuel revisionism of the Trump administration.