Climate action: "Domestic integrity is the best answer to the current geopolitical situation" (IFRI)

"Can the EU's climate action turn geopolitical without losing domestic integrity?": that was the central question of the high representatives and stakeholders' discussion panel organised by the IFRI (Institut Français des Relations Internationales) in Brussels on 17/09/2025.

"Domestic integrity is the best answer that we can give to the geopolitical situation today. We are getting ready to negotiate with the rest of the world, and EU keeps losing a precious time. Next week in New York, we still don't know how the EU is going to present itself, while we just learned that China will announce an ambitious NDC", declares Chiara Martinelli, Director of CAN Europe.

"EU climate actions have been geopolitical for decades already without losing domestic integrity. The sole solution to climate change is innovation, which we can only get if we push for the next 10, 15 years and try to tackle the cheapest emission reductions. It's one of the downsides of the ETS system: it works, but its weaker side has always been the innovation part, and that is what I'm extremely concerned about", says…