On 14 June 2025, Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera and Vice-Premier of the People’s Republic of China Ding Xuexiang chaired the Sixth EU-China High Level Environment and Climate Dialogue (HECD) in Beijing, China. EU Commissioners Wopke Hoekstra, Jessika Roswall and Dan Jørgensen also participated in the dialogue.
The High-Level Dialogue had valuable and constructive exchanges, identifying new paths to move forward our bilateral cooperation in these areas. Both parties discussed their respective domestic climate, energy and environmental policies, as well as bilateral cooperation and multilateral negotiations. They reconfirmed that the HECD is an important platform for exchange of views and cooperation and for advancing implementation and ambition.
Two separate dialogues took place on circular economy and energy co-chaired by Jessika Roswall and Dan Jørgensen respectively.
Climate
They both reiterated the importance of multilateralism and of reducing emissions. They will cooperate towards COP30.
They exchanged on the implementation of current NDC objectives. They also discussed their mitigation ambition under the new NDCs due ahead of COP30 in Belém. Key future bilateral activities were also discussed: carbon market, CBAM, finance for resilience, adaptation, Just Transition, etc.
Environment
At the HECD, both parties underlined global environmental challenges and the necessity to drive a global transition towards a sustainable, circular economy that protects nature.
Both sides agreed on the need to conclude a balanced and ambitious agreement on the global plastics treaty and continue the bilateral cooperation towards COP17 and the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The dialogue was a good opportunity to identify areas of cooperation and discussions focused among other topics on water, pollution, deforestation, wildlife and biodiversity.
In the Circular Economy Dialogue between Vice-Chairman Li Chunlin of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, and Jessika Roswall, EU Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, both sides reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate under the EU-China Memorandum of understanding on circular economy. They agreed to jointly identify activities to be included in the implementation of the EU-China Roadmap on circular economy. This includes a roadmap to continue dialogue and share best practices on circularity, markets for recyclates, ecodesign, and address opportunities and challenges in the circular economy for plastics.
Energy
In the Energy Dialogue between Wang Hongzhi, Administrator of National Energy Administration of People’s Republic of China, and Dan Jørgensen, EU Commissioner for Energy and Housing, both sides agreed on a joint readout. They reaffirmed that, the overarching objective of China-EU energy cooperation is to expedite the global transition to clean energy, with full consideration for ensuring energy security, with the aim of addressing the challenges of global climate change.
Both sides agreed to sustain cooperation on advancing various aspects of the clean energy transition. The discussions broadly included accelerating the transition, ensuring energy security, enabling benefits of the transition, as well as energy market design.
The EU-China Energy Cooperation Platform (ECECP) and the China-Europe Energy Innovation Cooperation Platform (CEEI) participated in the Energy Dialogue meeting.
