Mads Christensen is Executive Director of Greenpeace International.

As the military and diplomatic establishment gather for the annual Munich Security Conference, the air will be thick with talk of “strategic autonomy” and “energy security.” But there is little autonomy to talk of when sovereignty is for sale, and security is a hollow promise while regional stability depends on the weaponized resources of a rival power.

We are witnessing the unmasking of a 19th-century worldview: Resource Colonialism. In Venezuela, the mask slipped quickly; the world watched as the United States Navy deployed off the coast, reviving gunboat diplomacy for the 21st century. This was confirmed by President Trump’s declaration that the U.S. would exercise ‘de facto control’ over Venezuela’s oil industry.

In Greenland, the ‘prize’ is territorial expansion, and minerals, coveted for economic gain and military security. The rush for Greenland’s minerals threatens to replicate every abuse of the oil age: building on the same colonial mindset, displacing Indigenous communities, poisoning local water, and overriding democracy. Rhetoric toward Greenland has shifted from pressure to hostility, then manifesting in the ‘framework of a future deal’ as announced by VP Vance.

Emboldened by his bestseller ‘The Art of the Deal’, and the myth that he is the world’s ultimate businessman, Trump has replaced diplomacy with acquisition. His administration is treating sovereign territories and Indigenous homelands as if they were a real estate portfolio in Manhattan. 

Global liquidation sale

The fact of the matter is that Trump’s transactional worldview, where everything has a price tag, is not leadership but a global liquidation sale. Backed by a cabal of fossil-fuel billionaires, this circle of autocrats is treating the 21st century like a distressed asset to be stripped bare, regardless of the costs to the rest of us.

But growing up in Denmark and working in the Arctic for many years, there is one thing I know for certain: Greenland is not a deal to be made. It is not a place to be defined or controlled by anyone other than the people of Greenland.

And this is not just an American problem. Look East, and you see the mirror image. As Greenpeace has documented, Russia has transformed into a total “fossil fuel war economy.” The Kremlin’s aggression is funded almost entirely by oil and gas exports, creating a feedback loop where extraction finances its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as internal oppression.

In response, European leaders have finally agreed to end Russian gas imports, but are blindly rushing headlong into a dependency on American liquefied fossil gas. Trading dependency on Putin for dependency on Trump, however, is not a security strategy: it’s a high-stakes game with very poor cards. 

This is a message European diplomats need to bear in mind in Munich this week as they gather to discuss urgent issues such as energy security: the more Europe depends on the US for energy, the greater the vulnerability to pressure by Trump.

Climate action is “weapon” for security in unstable world, UN climate chief says

Every euro spent on US oil and gas strengthens Trump’s authoritarian agenda at home and colonialist ambitions abroad, threatening Europe’s independence and security. The only way for Europe to achieve true energy security is to phase out fossil gas and accelerate the shift to a fully renewable energy system.

The ‘Art of the Deal’ mindset treats the world like a chessboard and uses the fact that the board is burning to advance its interests. To Trump, the melting ice in Greenland isn’t a global catastrophe but just a door opening to get to the minerals underneath. But when we treat the climate crisis as just another ‘variable’ in a trade war, we lose the ability to cooperate.

Path to peace and security lies in clean energy

True security is not trading Russian gas for American fracking. It means phasing out fossil fuels and accelerating the shift to a fully renewable energy system that makes no dictator or president the master of Europe’s lights, whether they sit in Moscow, Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere.

True security is a just transition away from fossil fuels, not a military scramble to burn them faster. Expanding oil extraction anywhere undermines global climate goals and increases climate risks everywhere. A fossil-free, peaceful future requires breaking the link between energy systems, militarisation and exploitation.

Explainer: What is the petrodollar and why is it under pressure?

The leaders gathering in Munich have a stark choice. They can acquiesce to the dogma that might make right and that sovereignty is for sale, or they can recognise that true security requires charting another path entirely with a rules-based global order at its heart.

Rejecting resource colonialism needs to go hand in hand with boldly displaying different leadership: one that reclaims the moral compass. True leadership is built on solidarity, not threats. A healthy society isn’t measured by the profits of a few, but by the wellbeing of the many. Success isn’t about who wins; it’s about who thrives.

We are defined by what we save, not what we take.

The post The more Europe relies on the US for energy, the more it’s vulnerable to pressure by Trump appeared first on Climate Home News.

The more Europe relies on the US for energy, the more it’s vulnerable to pressure by Trump

After failing to get some of their main asks at the COP30 climate summit in November, European Union environment ministers are considering a new strategy for international climate negotiations which they describe as “less naive”, and more “realistic” and “pragmatic”.

On their way into a meeting to discuss the strategy in Cyprus last Friday, several ministers and officials hinted that the EU should take a tougher line in the United Nations (UN) climate talks and make more use of its power as a climate finance donor and trade partner.

At COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém, the EU pushed – along with other countries including the UK and some Latin American and small island nations – for stronger outcomes on transitioning away from fossil fuels, including a global roadmap. But after fractious all-night talks, the group was left disappointed as big fossil-fuel producers and most African states did not come on board.

Last week, reflecting on those results, Belgian climate minister Jean-Luc Crucke told reporters that Europe should be “realistic” and “better prepared”. Speaking in French, he said multilateralism should not mean that “it is always the same people who contribute while others do not”.

Hungary’s state secretary for environmental affairs Aniko Raisz said the EU must learn the lessons of COP30. The EU “has nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be shy of, we are not lacking ambition”. But, she added, “we need realism, we need pragmatism and we need to show that we are competitive”.

According to Radio France Internationale, an official from the office of French climate minister Monique Barbut told reporters before the meeting in Cyprus that the EU must be “less naive” and “more assertive, more demanding and more transactional if we want to have an impact in these negotiations”.

“We are in a tougher world where the European Union, when it comes to climate negotiations, is more isolated,” the quoted official said, before questioning whether the EU should “continue to demonstrate climate and financial solidarity with countries” that have not met their obligations under the Paris Agreement.

“We have tools like trade agreements,” whose implementation could be conditional on compliance with the Paris accord, the unnamed source added.

Speaking after the ministers’ meeting, European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the EU “is financing by far the most of climate action abroad” but “unfortunately, solidarity and reciprocity do not always go hand in hand. and that has to change”.

According to analysis by think-tank ODI Global, the US has never paid its fair share towards rich countries’ climate finance commitments and, under the Trump Administration, has now pulled back from climate finance almost entirely, leaving the EU as by far the biggest provider.

Trade and finance as leverage

Discussions are still at an early stage, details of the new strategy have yet to be published and the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment. But a source who speaks regularly to EU officials said they expect the bloc to become more selective in who it gives climate finance to, placing greater weight on the EU’s own commercial and geopolitical interests.

The source told Climate Home News that a higher proportion of funding may be given on a country-to-country basis, rather than through UN climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) where it is harder to control. Several European nations recently blocked Oman from getting GCF climate finance for an early warning system, sparking accusations of “discrimination” and “political considerations” from developing countries.

Trade could also be used as leverage. The EU’s recent trade deals with New Zealand, Kenya, Chile, India and the South American Mercosur bloc all included clauses specifying that both sides should implement the Paris climate agreement. Those provisions have yet to be used, despite backtracking on climate action from the New Zealand government.

At UN shipping talks in October, the Trump administration used threats of tariffs and visa restrictions on individual negotiators to achieve its aim of delaying green regulations, outmanoeuvring the EU and its allies.

“In a world where Trump is inserting clauses into trade agreements and using bullying tactics, it’s important for Europe to look at how it can – in a values-based way – use all of its assets too,” former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan told Climate Home News.

Morgan, one of the EU’s lead negotiating figures at COP27, COP28 and COP29, said the EU should integrate climate into all areas of foreign and economic policy and combine trade, investment, climate and energy security files. She also urged the bloc’s members to hire more high-level climate diplomats.

After a change in the German government, Morgan’s climate envoy position was abolished and now no major EU country has a climate diplomat of ministerial or deputy ministerial rank, making it harder to organise meetings with foreign ministers.

The EU’s diplomats in the European External Action Service should collaborate more with the European Commission divisions dealing with climate (DG CLIMA) and international partnerships (DG INTPA) so that the EU can “speak with one voice in capitals and internationally”, Morgan said.

But, she suggested, “Trump-like transactionalism should be avoided” as “countries need to come together to build the clean economy, not divide and rule to keep the old”.

Too transactional already?

The EU has already faced accusations that it is too transactional and doubling down on this strategy could backfire. At COP30, negotiators from the world’s poorest countries, African nations and small islands criticised EU attempts to trade promises on adaptation finance for commitments to cut emissions. “Adaptation is a right, not a bargaining chip,” said Africa’s then lead negotiator Richard Muyungi.

Avantika Goswami, climate lead at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home News: “It is unfortunate that the EU is seeing a fractured world and choosing to be transactional and ‘pragmatic’, rather than reinforcing their commitment to international cooperation and a multilateral regime based on justice and reparations.” She added that, as the EU has not yet fully eliminated its own dependence on fossil fuels, this strategy is “hypocritical”.

The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Li Shuo also warned the EU against taking a harder stance. “In turbulent times, the line between assertiveness and hypocrisy grows thin,” said the China specialist, adding that the EU’s new strategy could further isolationism and damage its relationships.

He said the EU should engage better with other powers like China to advance its interests. Other than an EU-China summit in July 2025, there has been little recent climate diplomacy between the two, despite hopes their partnership would deepen after Trump decided to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement.

The post After disappointing COP30, EU mulls “less naive” strategy for climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

After disappointing COP30, EU mulls “less naive” strategy for climate talks

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By Dan Gearino

The rise of AI data centers has sparked panic about how to provide enough electricity to support new development without overheating the planet and saddling everyone with unaffordable utility costs.

‘The Sky Isn’t Falling’: Providing Perspective on the Data Center Boom