BRUSSELS — The EU’s top climate envoy is picking a fight with China weeks before a high-stakes United Nations summit on global warming, already undercut by the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Some diplomats and observers were left wondering what Wopke Hoekstra hoped to achieve when he attacked Beijing last month for what he described as a “clearly disappointing” climate plan — especially after the EU had failed to present its own strategy.

The move raised fears of a rift between China and Europe heading into the United Nations’ COP30 climate summit, where the two blocs will be dominant forces after U.S. President Donald Trump declared in January that Washington would no longer participate in the process and formally exit the Paris Agreement.

But the Dutchman was unbowed. China’s promise to cut its climate pollution by between 7 and 10 percent by 2035 deserved straight talk, he said in an interview with POLITICO. “As much as I’m in the domain of diplomacy, there’s no point in suggesting that this is somewhere in the ballpark of almost being good enough.”

Every country needs to take responsibility for their planet-cooking pollution, he said, adding that he would keep seeking dialogue with China. “We’ll continue to work with them, but this is a missed opportunity, in my view, of doing what is needed and doing what also is related to a responsible actor of this importance and this size.”

The EU, racked by its own internal disagreement, has yet to submit a formal target, as it is required to do under the Paris Agreement. Instead, it has released a “statement of intent,” indicating that it will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by between 66.3 percent and 72.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2035.

Hoekstra’s criticism sparked an extraordinary riposte from China’s foreign ministry, which complained to Reuters about the EU’s “double standards and selective blindness” and warned “such rhetoric disrupts global solidarity in addressing climate change and undermines the atmosphere of cooperation.” 

On Monday, Hoekstra, the European commissioner responsible for climate, will sit across from Chinese negotiators for the first time since the spat broke out. The talks in Brazil are the final preparatory meeting before COP30 kicks off in the Amazon city of Belém in November.  

With the White House seeking every way possible to promote fossil fuels and downplay the surging global investment in clean energy, much of the rest of the world is looking to China and the EU to step in and send an alternative and unified message about the shift away from coal, oil and gas.

Asked who would win in a war of words between China and the EU, Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, replied flatly: “Trump.”

Hoekstra’s response to China’s climate goal stood out among European and U.N. officials, even many climate advocacy groups, who largely swerved conflict and accepted Beijing had a track record of underpromising and overdelivering on its pledges. 

“Criticism of others can only be credible if we lead by example, and Hoekstra’s remarks come across more as an attempt to deflect from Europe’s own shortcomings than as a coherent climate strategy,” said European Green lawmaker Michael Bloss. 

“Right now, we talk a big game but have nothing to show for it,” Bloss told POLITICO, referring to the EU missing the deadline to submit its 2035 climate plan. “That’s not how you motivate the rest of the world to act,” he added, warning that “without close EU-China cooperation, the COP30 process is in danger.” 

But “Commissioner Hoekstra’s statement was walking a very fine line,” tempered Sébastien Treyer, executive director of the French Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, or IDDRI, a think tank.

“It would have been unthinkable for the European commissioner for climate action to simply welcome China’s [climate plan] from a diplomatic point of view,” he added. 

What this leads to, however, is “a statement that creates a rather harsh atmosphere of mutual criticism, rather than a positive learning dynamic” ahead of COP30, Treyer noted. 

Punching hard 

Hoekstra’s approach has some support in Europe’s capitals, where pointing to China’s continued coal expansion is a common excuse for doing less at home. French officials, for example, have been adamant about the need for China to step up its efforts in the global fight against climate change. 

China’s 2035 climate target was “absolutely disappointing … they can do a lot better,” said a French government official, who, like others in this article was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. They vowed to keep “push[ing] China to fully embrace its role as a climate leader, which it should logically assume” ahead of COP30, because it is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, one of the top historical emitters, and has the “economic and financial means” to have a “real climate leadership policy.”

Others questioned whether Hoekstra’s strategy is the right one, especially after his boss European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had just endured the embarrassment of turning up to a U.N. summit in New York without a formal plan from the EU.

The rift on climate policy between the two powers is coming at a moment when trade tensions could be exacerbated as the EU looks to ramp up its trade defense measures against China. 

“Hoekstra is a liability,” said a senior climate diplomat from a European country, who disagrees with his aggressive approach toward China. “He always looks and sounds as if he’s just walked off the 18th green and wants a glass of wine with his Caesar salad. I don’t know anyone who thinks he has the requisite gravitas.”

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.

“In the COP, in Belém this year, we need to come up providing a clear message on the multilateral system being prepared to work together and being supported by all parties — almost all parties,” she told POLITICO. She was not responding directly to Hoekstra’s war of words with the Chinese.  

Steffen Menzel, program leader at the climate think tank E3G, said Hoekstra and Ribera were representing “different voices, different tones in Brussels and across the EU.” He saw no problem with Hoekstra’s tougher language. 

“It’s the right way to go for the EU to be very clear with the Chinese engagement or climate action when it is insufficient, and that doesn’t rule out cooperation,” he said. “The EU can and needs to be there with their own strong position.” 

Nicolas Camut contributed to this report.