Europe and China jointly account for more than a third of the world’s energy consumption, and along with the United States are the two actors with the greatest capacity to shape the future of the global energy system. Their interactions (in Europe, in China, in third countries, and in multilateral fora) will go a long way towards determining the success or failure of humanity’s efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change this century.

Along these lines, the working group is particularly concerned with the dynamics of Europe-China competition and cooperation around energy transition and decarbonisation, which are already having significant effects on the European and global division of labour, security and geopolitics, patterns of trade and investment, and ecology and conservation. These shifts are playing out at multiple scales, from the local politics around new sites of critical minerals extraction (as in Portugal’s Barroso lithium mine project) to the reshaping of energy value chains (e.g. friendshoring agreements, or Chinese investment in Hungarian battery manufacturing) questions of green energy and climate finance (e.g. carbon trading schemes, public-private partnerships and green bonds) and global governance initiatives and negotiations (e.g. COP, the Bridgetown Agenda). Meanwhile, despite some progress under the European Green Deal and a massive build out of Chinese renewables capacity, fossil fuels still account for the majority of primary energy consumption in both Europe and China- and thus fossil fuel investments, extraction and power generation continue to be salient topics for researchers and policymakers.