Optimistic EU climate chief: We will talk to Trump

Europe still wants to talk to Donald Trump about global warming, which the incoming U.S. president has called a “hoax.”

“We have a long tradition of working successfully with both Democrats and Republicans, and we’re going to stick to that tradition,” European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in an interview with journalists from several news outlets Friday.

Hoekstra spoke ahead of the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which begin Monday. But overshadowing the annual U.N. gathering is the prospect of the world’s largest economy withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement — a promise Trump made during the campaign. The agreement sets a global goal of keeping warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.

But talks on climate go beyond formal U.N. negotiations. The EU will “continue fruitful engagement with a range of congressmen, senators and also the next U.S. administration,” the Dutchman said.

Trade, Hoekstra noted, is a “key” area. And with the EU preparing for the full operation of its carbon border tariff — which places a levy on products arriving from countries without a domestic carbon price — there are interested parties on both sides of the Atlantic.

“I can actually see a range of topics where we can have a fruitful discussion,” he said. “Where that then in the end will lead to? We will need to find out.”