From Trump’s wrecking ball to China’s electrifying rise, geopolitics hang heavy over this year’s climate talks

Next month marks the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, hailed as humanity’s best shot at keeping climate change under control. Between then and now, the world has changed dramatically.

Emissions last year hit new highs, as did global temperatures. Wars rage in several countries. Right-wing populism in Western nations has spurred a green backlash.

This is the year countries must submit their climate plans for 2035. The Paris Agreement requires each country’s five-yearly plan – known as its “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) – to reflect the “highest possible ambition”. Each plan must go beyond the previous one.

The latest round of plans trickled in slowly after most nations missed the February 2025 deadline. The latest summary of the plans of 113 countries estimates global emissions will fall around 12% below 2019 levels by 2035.

But this won’t be remotely fast enough to hold warming to 1.5°C. Scientists warn emissions would have to fall at least 55% to make this possible, and rich countries would have to go even faster.

With political headwinds and slow progress, small wonder expectations are low for this year’s global climate talks, which have now begun in Belém, Brazil.

Carbon titans

The world’s top two economies produce a remarkable 45% of total carbon dioxide emissions – 31.5% from China and 13.6% from the United States. Tackling climate change will require a major effort from these two carbon titans.

While China is leading the world in installing and exporting renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles, it has continued to build coal plants. Its rate of construction reached a ten-year high in 2024.

China’s new 2035 emission plan is relatively meek, committing to cut net emissions a modest 7–10% from peak levels, which it may have already reached. It plans to increase non-fossil fuels (such as renewables and nuclear) to “over 30%” of total energy consumption. But this leaves plenty of room to continue fossil fuel use.

In the US, the Trump administration has quit the Paris Agreement in favour of worsening global heating with its aggressive “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

The European Union has traditionally been a climate leader. It’s aiming for a 90% emissions cut below 1990 levels by 2040, translating to roughly 66–72% by 2035. While encouraging, EU emissions are now only around 6% of the global tally, thanks to its early efforts.

Shifting geopolitics

Implementing the Paris Agreement has been challenged by factors such as the COVID pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the growth of energy-guzzling AI data centres.

Overshadowing these events is something much deeper: major structural changes to the global economy driven by the spectacular economic and military rise of China, along with the rise of other major Global South economies such as India. This “rise of the rest” and the relative decline of the West has led to political reverberations, notably the rise of radical right populist movements and parties in Western democracies.

The signature grievance of these parties is immigration. But opposition to climate action is also common. Climate policy is an easy political target, given the science is complicated, policy solutions are technocratic, and climate disinformation abounds.

By shifting the debate from economic to cultural terrain, where climate policy is framed as a “woke agenda” pushed by untrustworthy urban elites, these developments have provided cover for the fossil fuel industry.

In 2022, researchers found radical right populism was broadly negative for national climate and renewable energy policies.

The wrecking ball of Trumpism

The return of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement has dealt the most consequential blow to the Paris Agreement.

A decade ago, diplomatic cooperation between the US and China helped secure the Paris Agreement.

US-China relations have long been testy in other areas, especially as China’s strength has grown. Yet during the Obama and Biden years, climate diplomacy was a rare oasis of cooperation.

In 2025, US-China relations have soured across the board. Trump’s beggar-thy-neighbour tariff diplomacy has been especially punitive for China and triggered wider global economic volatility. In response, many countries (including Australia) are pursuing “friend-shoring” and “onshoring” to secure the critical minerals needed for the clean energy transition.

Trump’s repeated withdrawals from the Paris Agreement have been especially damaging, as the pullouts include withdrawing US contributions to climate finance, aimed at helping poorer countries cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts that are already locked in.

Last month, the US joined forces with Saudi Arabia to derail negotiations for a carbon tax on global shipping. Trump dubbed it a “green scam”, despite its broad industry support.

Domestically, Trump has aggressively cut climate regulations wherever possible and used the cover of a “national energy emergency” to accelerate fossil fuel extraction.

Tortuous progress on fossil fuels

Phasing out fossil fuels has been the hardest nut to crack during climate talks. The first modest breakthrough came in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow, where the final pact included a provision to “phase down” coal and “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies.

Petrostates hosted the next three COPs, accompanied by strong pushback from fossil fuel interests. The head of the 2023 talks in Dubai also headed the state oil company of the United Arab Emirates. In the past four COPs, fossil-fuel delegates outnumbered those from climate-vulnerable states.

Even so, some progress was made. For the first time in more than 30 years of climate negotiations, countries agreed at the Dubai talks to “transition away from fossil fuels” in a “just, orderly and equitable manner”.

So far, this is talk, without the principles, pathways or timetables to make it possible to end reliance on fossil fuels. A recent report states governments still plan to produce more than twice the fossil fuels by 2030 than needed to hold warming to 1.5°C.

Coalitions of the willing?

Despite strained US-China relations and slow progress, the Paris Agreement is still essential as a rallying point.

Several climate coalitions of the willing have emerged to galvanise efforts to phase out fossil fuels, such as the Powering Past Coal Alliance launched in 2017 and the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance formed in 2021. The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at equitably phasing out fossil fuels, is backed by 17 countries. Yet major fossil fuel producers are conspicuously absent from these alliances.

If more countries join, it could put wind in the sails of climate talks. But this seems unlikely.

Which way forward?

The world has made some progress on climate change, averting the worst-case scenarios. But progress is slow, geopolitics is biting, and fossil-fuel powers are fighting back. It’s unlikely we will see much progress in Belém.

Robyn Eckersley has received research funding in the past from the Australian Research Council and she currently hold a research grant with the Research Council of Norway.