For the first time, the U.S. did not send a delegation to COP—the UN conference where countries roll out action plans to mitigate climate change. This comes after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in January, calling it ‘unfair’ and ‘one-sided’—and removing the world’s largest historical emitter from the fight against climate change.
But green industry leaders say this doesn’t mean that climate diplomacy is dead.
“When there’s a vacuum, something or someone will fill it. In the climate leadership space, we now see many countries from the Global South stepping up,” said Faroze Nadar, the executive director of the UN Global Compact Network Malaysia and Brunei, at the Fortune Innovation Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday.
He pointed to the ongoing COP30 in Belém, Brazil, noting that many prominent pavilions were from Asian countries, with China having an especially large presence.
“Climate diplomacy is now being pushed very much by the Chinese,” Nadar said.
Fellow panelists agreed, adding that while China is stepping up in global climate talks, it is also taking concrete climate actions.
“(China) is not just talking, it’s walking the walk,” said Ying Staton, the Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President for Asia Pacific at Plastic Energy.
The eastern superpower has been driving the global energy transition, by expanding production and driving down the cost of renewables, Staton added. It produces 90% of the world’s solar panels, 60% of wind turbines, 85% of battery cells, and dominates in rare earth metals.
Yet Trump’s decision to pull back has not fully eroded the influence of the U.S. at climate talks, as a battalion of state and local representatives—including California governor Gavin Newsom—made the trip to Brazil instead.
“(This shows that) there are so many policy levers that you can pull, and often it’s the local municipal governments who have the more direct levers,” Staton said.
And though governments have a role to play, so do businesses.
“The new economy is going to build on the climate movement, so there is business sense in being part (of it),” said Nadar. “And businesses are the easiest stakeholders to work with, because they’re driven by a common language of profitability.”
For instance, the UN Global Compact Network Malaysia and Brunei, which Nadar helms, often works with Sarawak Energy—Malaysia’s largest green energy producer—on corporate sustainability efforts, he said.
Investing in climate action should also be framed as a strategic advantage to companies, rather than a cost. After all, the green premium—or the added cost companies pay for sustainability—is only temporary, Staton said.
“The more you build and the more you scale, the cheaper these solutions become, and that’s how you drive the green premium to zero,” she said. “If you look at renewable energy 20 years ago, there was a green premium—there isn’t one today.”
Aiying Wang, the President & CEO of Greater China, SEA and India at Envac AB, echoed Staton’s sentiments, adding that scale is key. Green technology and infrastructure need scale, so that businesses can “do the right thing” and invest in them without losing profitability, she said.
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