At a closed-door meeting on 4 February, EU environment ministers signalled a quiet but consequential shift in Europe’s climate posture, asserting that the Union must become “less naïve” and more explicitly transactional in global climate negotiations. The discussion marked the opening of a broader strategic rethink in Brussels, as policymakers assess how Europe should operate in an increasingly fragmented diplomatic landscape after last year’s climate talks exposed the limits of consensus-driven multilateralism.
As world leaders convened in Belém, Brazil for COP30, António Guterres warned that the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement has now slipped out of reach, highlighting the failure of multilateral climate efforts. With few heads of state attending and the conspicuous absence of US President Donald Trump underscoring the extent of political paralysis, government-led climate action appears more ineffective than ever. This lack of political leadership was starkly reflected in COP30’s closing sessions, with France among the countries that decried the “incomprehensible omission” of the widely-demanded fossil fuel phaseout plan from the Brazilian presidency’s draft text.
Against this backdrop, the private sector is emerging as the main engine of environmental progress and the planet’s greatest source of hope. In many sectors traditionally associated with high carbon emissions – including mining, aviation and steel – forward-thinking companies are investing heavily in sustainable innovation to cut emissions and generate positive impact. Moving forward, the EU’s emerging approach to climate action will need to move beyond declaratory diplomacy and harness these actor’s scale, speed and ingenuity.
ArcelorMittal’s ambitious drive for green steel
Responsible for roughly 8% of global carbon emissions, the steel industry is one of the world’s toughest climate problems, with traditional blast-furnace production dependent on hard-to-decarbonise, coal-based processes and demand for steel only rising. By cutting out fossil fuels, green steel solutions, including hydrogen-based direct reduction and electric-arc furnaces powered by renewable electricity, offer a pathway to deep emissions cuts – yet scaling these technologies requires staggering investment and companies willing to take risks.
Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal is one of the few steel players capable of doing just that. Through its XCarb programme, the company is placing multi-billion-euro bets on low-carbon technologies across several countries, from hydrogen-based pilots to large expansions of recycled-steel production. Across Europe, ArcelorMittal has recently enrolled plants in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Spain into the Low Emission Steel Standard scheme it helped found last year. Meanwhile, ArcelorMittal’s $36 million XCarb investment in Boston Metal’s molten-oxide electrolysis technology is helping to create a future where steelmaking runs on renewable electricity rather than fossil fuels.
ArcelorMittal’s willingness to test and deploy new models at scale helps shift the entire market, with its massive size giving it unusual power to create demand for greener steel. Alongside this industrial heavyweight, disrupters like Stegra are playing a complementary and strategically-vital role. With its green steel plant in northern Sweden under construction – built entirely around renewable electricity, hydrogen-based reduction and modern electric-arc steelmaking – Stegra is pushing the frontier, demonstrating what a next-generation plant could achieve when designed specifically for climate action.
CMOC delivering sustainability building blocks
Much like steel, the mining industry is an essential industry for the global economy and supply chains that nevertheless carries a heavy climate legacy. In addition to contributing between 4%- 7% percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the industry has long been linked to deforestation and biodiversity issues. Given the soaring demand for critical minerals, the mining industry must fundamentally re-image how raw materials are sourced, powered and processed.
Chinese mining giant CMOC Group is among the companies leading the much-needed progress. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CMOC has invested in the 200MW Heshima Hydropower project to supply clean electricity to its copper-cobalt operations in Lualaba Province as well as its surrounding communities, with construction advancing well. By shifting toward hydropower, CMOC is helping to address mining’s pivotal energy challenge of massively producing the green transition’s key inputs while simultaneously reducing emissions.
Meanwhile, CMOC is equally embracing the electrification of site-scale mining equipment. To help advance its group-wide electrification strategy, the company has deployed a range of electric excavators, trucks and loaders at its Chinese operations to cut fossil fuel consumption and associated emissions, with its 132 EVs now accounting for over 93% of its haulage fleet.
Furthermore, in Brazil, CMOC has invested in retro-fitting machinery to boost energy efficiency via innovative heat-recovery systems, with the group’s local subsidiary generating 47GWh of electricity through residual heat recovered from its acid-plant operations. This kind of pragmatic innovation matters, demonstrating how mining can curb emissions from a more environmentally-responsible use of existing assets, with CMOC’s range of sustainability initiatives helping it maintain its ‘AA’ MSCI ESG rating in 2025.
Airbus innovating to clean the skies
Like mining and steel, aviation faces a structural climate challenge. Although the sector accounts for ‘only’ 2-3% of global CO₂ emissions, air travel demand is growing faster than other transport modes, which – paired with declining emissions in ‘easier-to-abate’ industries – means aviation’s emissions share will surge without ambitious interventions. If aviation is to maintain its crucial economic benefits and social ‘license to operate,’ it must decouple rising traffic from rising carbon emissions.
For Airbus, aviation’s decarbonisation journey begins with the aircraft themselves. The European firm’s latest A320 and A220 families achieve roughly 20% lower fuel burn and CO₂ emissions compared with previous generation aircraft, thanks to aerodynamic refinements, lighter composite structures, and high-efficiency engines. Meanwhile, Airbus continues to invest in hydrogen aircraft concepts under its ZEROe programme, signalling that the company sees radical propulsion system innovation as an indispensable part of aviation’s decarbonised future.
On the fuel front, Airbus has committed that all its aircraft will be certified to fly with up to 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030 – a major step given today’s supply constraints. To accelerate SAF production, the company has built partnerships across the ecosystem, from joint SAF investments with Cathay Pacific to SAF trial schemes with major airlines. What’s more, Airbus is leading efforts to develop ‘Book-and-Claim’ systems, helping to stimulate global demand for fuels capable of curbing up to 80% of the sector’s CO₂ emissions.
For the stubborn remaining emissions, Airbus has partnered with direct air carbon capture firm 1PointFive and major airlines to establish a robust carbon removal credits system. Complementing this approach, Airbus’s satellite climate monitoring projects, like the Sentinel-6B satellite launched in November, deliver the high-precision atmospheric data needed to effectively target climate action.
The bottom line
COP30’s failure to deliver meaningful political momentum makes it abundantly clear that the planet can no longer wait for government leadership. While diplomatic gridlock deepens, businesses in high-emission sectors are proving that progress is possible through innovation, investment and measurable impact. With the private sector now setting the pace, governments must, at the very least, clear the way for those prepared to drive real climate action.
Disclaimer: This article contains sponsored marketing content. It is intended for promotional purposes and should not be considered as an endorsement or recommendation by our website. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and exercise their own judgment before making any decisions based on the information provided in this article.
