China and the European Union need to show joint leadership on climate change and cannot expect the "same leadership" from the US under the Trump administration, European climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete says.
Canete, speaking to reporters on Thursday after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, expressed regret the US was rolling back climate policies but said China and Europe remained committed to "driving forward" the battle against climate change.
"We are not going to backslide even if the United States at the moment ... is backsliding from its previous commitments," he said.
US President Donald Trump signed an order on Tuesday to undo Obama-era climate change regulations, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry and calling into question US support for the international deal to fight global warming.
Obama's Clean Power Plan, aimed at slashing power plant emissions, was a key component of joint pledges made in 2014 by China and the US, the world's two biggest producers of greenhouse gases, and helped seal a new global pact signed in Paris at the end of 2015.
The Paris Agreement seeks to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the century and limit global warming to "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Climate activists expressed concern the new US position would jeopardise negotiations to implement the Paris agreement, which are set to be completed in 2018, and urged the European Union to step into the breach.
"There is a clear risk that the United States might go beyond the delicate balance that the countries agreed in Paris," said Li Shuo, senior climate adviser with environmental group Greenpeace.
"We might have some trouble and if the European Union and China can reaffirm their commitment to conclude this process, that will send a strong political signal."
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