For decades, Europe relied on pipelines bringing Russian gas to heat its homes and provide its electricity, arguing that President Vladimir Putin would not shoot himself in the foot by turning off the taps. That assumption was proved wrong when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, leading to restrictions on gas exports to European countries.
With Russian supplies largely cut off, Europe’s gas and electricity prices shot up, causing a cost-of-living crisis across the continent. While speeding up policies to get their economies off fossil fuels in the long term, European governments scrambled for alternative gas suppliers in the short term.
One of those stepping up supply to Europe was the US, which is building out liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals on its Gulf Coast. But with Donald Trump back in the White House and threatening to invade Greenland, before toning down his rhetoric last week, these energy ties are coming under scrutiny.
A legally binding ban on Russian gas imports was approved by European Union countries on Monday and will take effect by late 2027.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on the same day that “it was a huge mistake to be dependent on Russian fossil fuels. We should never have done that and now we have to make sure that we will have no dependencies on other countries outside Europe.”
-
IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it -
Africa urged to unite on minerals as US strikes bilateral deals
In the race for minerals critical for clean energy technologies, experts at the World Economic Forum said African nations should coordinate negotiations with trade partners
Chris Aylett has co-written a well-timed new research paper for Chatham House titled “Why renewables and electrification hold the keys to EU energy security”. He spoke to Climate Home News about northern Europe’s offshore wind ambitions and who holds the power in the US-Europe gas relationship.
Q: On Monday, ten northern European governments gathered in Hamburg for the North Sea Summit, where they committed to developing offshore wind and interconnecting their national grids. They said this would improve Europe’s energy security. Are they right?
A: Yes. Renewable generation, especially offshore wind, helps to reduce Europe’s dependence on imported gas, which we know only too well can be used against Europe to devastating effect. So there’s a simple energy security benefit in that respect.
The wind projects are also combined with interconnectors. It’s really exciting because the wind assets connect to lots of different countries and this can increase the efficiency of the system and renewable generation. Interconnectors give grid managers in different countries access to more generation options, boosting energy security and pushing down prices.
One caveat though is that new electricity infrastructure does mean new challenges, and nothing is risk free. So there will be work to do to ensure that the infrastructure is resilient to physical attack – for example the undersea cables – and cyberattacks. But that can be done, it can be mitigated, and there’s a lot of work going on in these areas.
Q: How much of the supply chain for offshore wind is European rather than reliant on China and other countries?
A: We live in an integrated, globalised world – and even though Europe has a pretty strong wind sector and much of what is being used to generate electricity from wind in Europe is from European suppliers, there are Chinese components in there and there are Chinese companies now which are trying to get into the European market.
It’s not as simple as ‘use Chinese equipment or don’t use Chinese equipment’. It’s all to do with the entire supply chain. There will be decisions around what aspects you would want to buy in and use, and which you wouldn’t, and there will be security regulations involved in that. It’s certainly an aspect to consider.
Q: In 2024, the US supplied a sixth of the EU’s gas imports. Does this make the EU reliant on the US for its gas in the same way it was on Russia? Or, with the International Energy Agency forecasting declining European gas demand and a global glut of LNG, is the US reliant on Europe? Where does the power lie – with the buyer or seller of gas?
A: The power lies with both at the moment. Europe buys about half of the US’s LNG exports – it’s a massive customer and the US government is very keen to sell it, there’s no doubt about that. You can tell in some of the government rhetoric over the last year and the “energy dominance” agenda that they want to sell. So it seems a little bit like all the power is with the EU.
But the issue is that there are not that many countries that export LNG – not in these quantities anyway. And the glut in LNG that is starting to emerge and is likely to play out in the run up to 2030 and beyond, most of that is going to be US producers. So you haven’t got that many options if you’re looking at which countries you get LNG from, and some of the EU’s other gas suppliers – Norway, Algeria – they’re not likely to be expanding anytime soon. Australia is expensive, Qatar is difficult.
So there’s a mutual dependency at the moment, but the EU has a chance to escape this by reducing demand. Once it brings gas demand down by switching to renewable resources, energy efficiency and so on, then it’s in a much better situation. Whereas for the US, it might find that it’s not got any other markets to sell into, as the big hope was the US would start selling to China and that now doesn’t look to be happening.
Q: Could the US government order its gas companies to restrict exports to Europe, in the same way Vladimir Putin did? Would it do so, given that the oil and gas industry is a major funder of the Trump administration and Trump promised to support them?
In principle, the US government could not stop US companies exporting to Europe. There’s the rule of law, there’s contracts between companies but, with this administration, it’s not totally clear that this would be an insurmountable barrier if they wanted to exert leverage.
What the US government could do is incentivise that the gas which would have been bound to Europe is sold into the domestic market instead. LNG is flighty, it goes where the highest price it can fetch is. We’re seeing that now with the winter storm in the US. Gas production has gone down and there’s huge demand for heating and electricity so prices have shot up in the US, so LNG is going there. Europe has had to start buying from Australia.
If you look at the upward trajectory of US demand for electricity, with data centres combined with the scrapping of incentives for renewable deployment, you’ve got a situation where demand for gas in the US is increasing and prices are going up.
You can imagine a situation where a populist government could go ‘right, we know US citizens benefit from US gas and we’re not going to export it’. So there’s a quite subtle sort of interplay there which wouldn’t necessarily be as brutal as what Putin did in 2022.
This interview was shortened and edited for clarity.
The post Q&A: Trump’s Greenland threats push Europe to question reliance on US gas appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: Trump’s Greenland threats push Europe to question reliance on US gas
One of the key expected outcomes from the upcoming COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, is the launch of a “just transition mechanism”.
This follows years of calls from civil society to support a “just transition” as countries shift towards low-emissions energy systems and away from fossil fuels.
At the COP30 UN climate talks last year in the Brazilian city of Belém parties agreed to establish a “mechanism” to support this goal, called the “Belém-Antalya mechanism” (BAM).
Groups that have championed the BAM want it to act as a central hub on just transitions, providing support for workers and communities around the world.
However, the details of exactly what the much-touted BAM will consist of remain vague, with developed and developing countries disagreeing about its functions and purpose.
Disagreements continued at the UN climate talks in Bonn in June 2026, including on the crucial question of how the BAM will be financed.
Here, Carbon Brief looks at where the idea for the BAM came from, how it could support just transitions and what to expect from COP31.
How has a ‘just transition’ featured in UN climate talks?
A “just transition” is the idea that workers and communities should be supported in the shift to a low-carbon economy. It is a central principle behind the idea of climate justice.
Often, the term refers to those linked to the fossil-fuel industry, but it can also refer to transitions taking place in agriculture, heavy industry and various other sectors.
The concept originated in the 1980s, when US labour unions forged alliances with environmental justice groups. It has since become a key part of international climate discussions.
The preamble to the 2015 Paris Agreement includes a commitment to “tak[e] into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities”.
Bert De Wel, policy officer at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), tells Carbon Brief:
“The labour movement is very happy with the wide audience and broad political support that the concept has received since its inception in the 1980s. The inclusion in the Paris Agreement, with the reference to the creation of decent work and quality jobs was a milestone for the movement. While other demands have been added…we continue to stress the labour dimension as being central to the concept.”
Three years after the creation of the Paris Agreement, at COP24 in the former coal-mining city of Katowice, the Polish presidency highlighted the issue of just transitions.
The need for carbon-cutting policies to ensure “a just transition of the workforce” that creates “decent work and quality jobs” was included in the “Silesia declaration”, issued by the presidency during the first week of COP24.
While the declaration was only signed by 50 countries – roughly a quarter of the parties at the summit – it was still “noted” in the final COP text.
This helped to drive momentum behind the idea, culminating in formal agreement at COP27 in Egypt to launch a “work programme on just transition” (JTWP).
De Wel says the establishment of the JTWP was a “major step forward” that allowed parties to “speak about just transition in more concrete terms”.
In the years since, negotiators have worked to flesh out the JTWP, with disagreements between parties about what its purpose should be.
Broadly, developed countries would like it to focus on domestic workforces, while some nations want a more global outlook, including support for transitions in developing countries.
The JTWP has proved a challenging negotiating space, with talks at the COP29 summit in 2024 closing without an agreement, in what one observer dubbed a “betrayal”.
However, despite these frustrations, parties at COP30 in Brazil agreed to establish a new institutional mechanism on just transitions, which has become widely known as the BAM. The move was hailed as a “victory” by civil society.
Where did the ‘just transition mechanism’ come from?
In the run-up to COP30, civil society began to push for the establishment of an “institutional arrangement” that would move work under the JTWP from talk into action.
(This was originally called the “Belém action mechanism” by civil society groups, who subsequently updated this to the “Belém-Antalya mechanism” following the outcome at COP30. However, in the JTWP text agreed at COP30 it is only described as a “mechanism”, sometimes also referred to as the “just transition mechanism”.)
Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition at NGO umbrella group Climate Action Network (CAN) International, tells Carbon Brief:
“The idea of the mechanism emerged from the collaboration of civil society, trade unions, feminist groups, youth and Indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC.
“It was clear that the kind of activities being run under the JTWP – two dialogues a year and one ministerial – would not support the delivery of just-transition strategies on the ground, so a new approach was developed to get words into action.”
Following the inception of the idea, civil society did “tonnes of stuff to boost it up the agenda”, Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, a senior campaigner at the charity War on Want, tells Carbon Brief.
This ranged from presenting demands and proposals to different constituents, organising joint letters and writing policy papers, all the way through to designing logos, creating memes and even a song.
These efforts ultimately paid off: during the Bonn climate negotiations in June 2025, one draft text included the idea for a new institutional arrangement. One of the options in the draft text was for a “toolbox, guidance framework, global platform, technical assistance network [or] mechanism”.
![Paragraph 28 of the JTWP text published 25 June 2025. The text reads "28. Options for further implementation of the United Arab Emirates just transition work programme Option 1: Improving existing modalities Option 2: New institutional arrangements [toolbox, guidance framework, global platform, technical assistance network, mechanism] Option 3: Defer decision to 2026"](https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/para28-1024x334.png)
This inclusion was broadly welcomed as a “big win” for civil society groups, although parties acknowledged that more needed to be done to flesh out the idea.
Going into COP30, civil society groups continued to push the idea of creating a BAM, with protests, banners and badges visible around the venue.
Early in negotiations, the G77 and China – a large coalition of developing countries at UN climate talks – put forward their own proposal for a just transition “mechanism”. This, they suggested, could provide technical assistance, support international cooperation and help to foster partnerships in an effort to address implementation gaps.
Their proposal faced initial pushback from developed-country parties including Norway, the UK and others, who opposed it due to concerns that it would duplicate existing systems and require additional funding.
Developed countries also opposed the use of the term “mechanism”, with the EU suggesting an “action plan” as a potential alternative. Nevertheless, the creation of a “mechanism” was included in the final draft text on the JTWP.
This text was formally approved during the COP30 closing plenary to extended applause from many in the hall.
In a statement at the time, Chiara Martinelli, director at CAN Europe, welcomed the decision:
“Delivering BAM was a major civil society win. It creates a coordinated institutional home to drive forward progress on the just transition.”
The decision to develop the mechanism included a request for parties to work over the subsequent year – through to COP31 – on a plan to get things started.
What role could the mechanism play in facilitating ‘just transitions’?
According to civil society, the BAM could help tackle the fractured just-transition landscape by centralising resources and helping to overcome a number of barriers.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Rosemberg says the just-transition space “lacks coordination and the right kind of support and is quite disconnected from climate action imperatives”. She adds:
“The BAM can play a role in bringing those [people] trying to make just transition happen together, identify gaps and barriers, foster cooperation and accelerate support.”
Civil society has put forward a number of proposals likely to inform the structure of the BAM. Most consist of a mechanism with three parts, which would encompass and expand upon the work that is currently being carried out under the JTWP.
One proposal by a coalition of five NGOs suggests the mechanism is formed of a steering body, a “knowledge arm” and an “implementation arm”.
The steering body would coordinate the work of the two arms of the BAM, including deciding the topics that should be discussed under the ongoing JTWP, which will continue to feature in climate negotiations. They suggest the body would recommend topics that require negotiation when “gaps that require political guidance are identified”.
Their proposal is illustrated in the infographic below, showing the steering body acting as a central hub for work within the BAM.
The final part of the BAM, the “implementation arm”, would act as a hub to enable and coordinate technical, financial and knowledge-based assistance for those pursuing a just transition.
Rosemberg says the vision of civil society is for work to go “beyond negotiators’ dialogues”. She says the BAM could enable the organisation of a “matchmaking platform” to provide support faster, as well as dedicated groups to identify and mobilise financial resources. She adds:
“Finally, through bottom-up identification of barriers, the BAM can also allow a discussion on enabling just transition that is informed by practitioners. The BAM can show that implementation does not necessarily mean taking issues outside of the UNFCCC.”
A separate proposal for the structure of the BAM from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) – a separate coalition of NGOs – similarly proposes three elements. These would be: coordination and coherence; knowledge generation; and international cooperation and support.
Sealey-Huggins, who is affiliated with DCJ, notes:
“If it works in practice, what we’ll see is a cascade of just-transition policies implemented across countries, across sectors in a unifying, transformational moment for justice-centered climate action, and that will be the key to unlocking the transition that’s been missing so far.”
Another proposal for the BAM comes from the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics. It suggests the three functions of the mechanism should be capacity-building, technical assistance and knowledge-sharing, but it recommends a dual-arm structure comprising a policy arm and an operational arm.
De Wel tells Carbon Brief that while there is “rather broad consensus on the functions”, parties are pushing in “very different directions” on how the BAM will be set up.
What are the financial implications of the mechanism?
Within UN climate negotiations, some parties have raised concerns about the potential cost of the mechanism.
The push to launch the BAM comes at a time when the UNFCCC itself is facing a funding gap, following the US withdrawal. Several other parties have also delayed or reduced their contributions, in response to changes in domestic priorities.
This has led to the UNFCCC cancelling events and not filling vacated positions, as the organisation struggles to carry out its existing functions.
Membership
Support award-winning climate journalism
As such, some parties have expressed hesitancy about creating another mechanism under the remit of the UNFCCC, which also requires funding. However, proponents of the BAM argue that the costs of running it would be minimal.
Rosemberg tells Carbon Brief that the BAM represents “an opportunity to streamline and make efficient use of public resources”. She adds:
“The mechanism does not necessarily require the creation of a costly new institution. Instead, it can leverage existing climate-finance channels and philanthropy.”
She adds that a “similar body” to the potential mechanism, the Climate Technology Centre and Network, costs less than $10m a year. Rosemberg notes that this is “not an impossible amount to be found if there is political will to