A top EU climate official, Kurt Vandenberge told the media that the long awaited Climate Club, born of Germany’s G7 Presidency last year, will be launched at COP28. To date relatively little is known about the Club, save for the fact that it intends to foster collaboration between countries that peg themselves as highly ambitious on mitigation, and that they would collaborate on trade measures as well as decarbonisation of the industrial sector. We have previously speculated that the Club will be used to foster a network of climate and trade aligned countries, all seeking to avoid the negative impacts of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Being outside the Club will, of course, likely prejudice a country’s trade opportunities, but being within it would require higher mitigation ambition.
