Karl Mathiesen

Big job leading one of the best teams in the business...

#journojobs

jobs.mpleo.net/en/politico/...

Europe learned to love American gas. This is how Trump wrecks it. Backroom deals, embassy contacts and brown liquor built a booming export trade. Now, the lobbyist who saw it all says the U.S. president’s dalliances with Vladimir Putin are an incoming “aste…

NEW: Backroom deals, embassy contacts and brown liquor built a booming trade of American LNG to Europe.

Now, the lobbyist who saw it all says the U.S. president’s dalliances with Vladimir Putin are an incoming “asteroid” for the industry.

www.politico.eu/article/euro...

‘She’s pretty much alone’: The EU’s greenest leader fights the tide The European Commission’s second-most powerful politician is isolated, beleaguered and under attack — just like the green policy she has vowed to protect.

‘She’s pretty much alone’: The EU’s greenest leader fights the tide

Teresa Ribera, the EU's 2nd in charge, has won significant victories in secret against a combination of attacks and disinterest.

w/ @ziaweise.bsky.social

www.politico.eu/article/tere...

Global climate science body roiled by controversies stoked by Saudis, US The proposed selection of a Saudi Aramco oil company staffer as one of the authors of a key science report has been denounced as “political capture.”

NEW: Sudanese economist Mustafa Babiker — a long-term employee of the Saudi Aramco oil company — has been proposed as coordinating lead author of a crucial chapter of the next UN climate science report, a leaked document shows.

www.politico.eu/article/saud...

EU climate chief lobbied Germany to back weakened 2040 goal Wopke Hoekstra successfully pushed the incoming coalition to back foreign carbon credits, helping shift the EU-level 2040 talks.

NEW: EU climate chief lobbied Germany to back weakened 2040 goal

www.politico.eu/article/eu-c...

🇪🇺 I'm writing POLITICO's Brussels Playbook today – tell me what's happening in your world ... kmathiesen@politico.eu

Some Republicans want to beat China on clean energy. Trump doesn’t care. Efforts to preserve Biden-era tax breaks for green technology are running into an administration focused on fossil fuels — and unwilling to play on what it sees as Beijing's turf.

NEW: Trump is perfectly
OK with ceding the clean energy economy to China.

Some green tech advocates thought they could convince Trump to compete.

Trump 2.0 sees putting money into it as enriching China and legitimizing clean energy.

w/ @karlmathiesen.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

Some Republicans want to beat China on clean energy. Trump doesn’t care. Efforts to preserve Biden-era tax breaks for green technology are running into an administration focused on fossil fuels — and unwilling to play on what it sees as Beijing's turf.

NEW: One camp wants the United States to compete with Beijing on clean energy.

The other says playing in that game would make the United States the loser.

With @zcolman.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

Can Australia pay off Turkey to host COP31? The Brits did. A previously unreported package of investment pledges and U.N. support got Turkey to back down last time.

NEW: Lessons for Australia?

Unreported details of how UK paid off Turkey for COP26.

Inward investment conference in London
Votes for Turkish UN candidates
Backing for UN positions

+ 😬 according to 1 diplo a broken promise to back Turkey over Australia for COP31

www.politico.eu/article/aust...

EU warns Britain’s war on newts could violate Brexit deal Leaked EU report raises alarm about U.K. planning bill’s bonfire of environmental protections.

NEW: Confidential EU report warns UK plans to strip nature protections in planning reforms could breach of the Brexit trade deal.

Also notes senior UK politicians "ridiculing" of green laws and Rachel Reeves banging on about newts and bats.

www.politico.eu/article/newt...

Trump’s efforts to split Europe and China on clean energy fall flat The U.S. argument against the green transition felt “quiet and out of place,” said one official.

NEW: Trump officials arrived in the UK last week with a simple message: China is a malign actor, benefiting from misguided climate policies, and the world is better off copying America's newfound embrace of fossil fuels.

It was met with a shrug.

www.politico.eu/article/trum...

Trump officials pressure world’s top energy agency to drop climate mission U.S. and European officials are sparring in meetings of the International Energy Agency, which helps guide global investments and policies.

NEW: The IEA's research has shown increasingly optimistic outlooks for clean power and gloomy forecasts for oil.

The Trump administration wants that to change.

w/ @saraschonhardt.bsky.social , @charliecooper8.bsky.social and @nicolascamut.bsky.social

www.politico.eu/article/dona...

Pope Francis, the isolated climate moralist In the weeks before his death, Francis repeated a decade-old plea for a break from both Trumpian greed and the left’s economic rationalism.

“There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself.”

On the loss of a mighty moral voice on climate change.

www.politico.eu/article/pope...

You know how you know the European Commission doesn't take FOI requests seriously?

It emails its responses in Comic Sans...

My POLITICO colleagues are covering the hell out of Trump's move to burn down the apparatus of state governance, science and industry that was supposed to be the bulwark against his fossil fuel agenda.

politico.com

Trump tells countries to ax talks on shipping carbon tax, or else The attack on the shipping deal is part of a wider U.S. rejection of policies to fight climate change.

Will the Trump 2.0 admin blithely ignore climate talks or try to derail them?

Strong evidence for the latter here with @FonieMits scoop.

www.politico.eu/article/dona...

Breaking: EU has delayed its 2040 climate target until "before summer"

next.politico.eu/news/196645

Trump Tells Inner Circle That Musk Will Leave Soon The president is pleased with Musk but the decision comes as the tech mogul increasingly looks like a political liability.

"The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role."

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Can Keir Starmer bring down bills before bills bring him down? Downing Street is worried about rising energy bills. Every option for bringing them under control could bring political pain.

Good story by @karlmathiesen.bsky.social et al: "Can Keir Starmer bring down bills before bills bring him down?"

The obv & most progressive option, flagged in the piece, still seems to be shifting eco/social levies off elec bills & onto taxation, paid with tax rise
www.politico.eu/article/can-...

It's vital stammered voices like mine are featured in the media Piers tells us about being the media's go-to climate expert, and what stammering has given him.

"It's vital that stammered voices are featured in the media ... It reminds everyone that some people in our community stammer and have as much right to have their voices listened to as anyone."

Lovely piece from top climate scientist @piersforster.bsky.social

stamma.org/your-voice/i...

Can Keir Starmer bring down bills before bills bring him down? Downing Street is worried about rising energy bills. Every option for bringing them under control could bring political pain.

Oof. UK energy bills up £111 this morn — Starmer feels vulnerable.

POLITICO spoke to 27 energy analysts, officials, pollsters and politicians about how the gvmt can bring bills down.

Many lamented a public debate marked by a lack of honesty on all sides...

www.politico.eu/article/can-...

EU exploring weaker 2040 climate goal The European Commission wants to keep a 90 percent emissions-cutting target but to change how countries calculate their progress.

NEW: "To allay political concerns about the effort’s cost to heavy industry and agriculture, Hoekstra is weighing “flexibilities” for reaching the goal."

NGOs: These are “very dangerous proposals.”

www.politico.eu/article/eu-e...

UK’s Just Stop Oil win a cut in jail time — but lose the bigger battle Dismay and anger inside London court as landmark ruling on climate activists is read out.

NEW: A minor win for Just Stop Oil. A bigger loss for protest rights in the UK.

www.politico.eu/article/uk-j...

How Keir Starmer’s aid cuts threaten Britain’s climate mission The Labour government has promised to lead the world on climate change, but its renewed focus on defense has thrown those plans into uncertainty.

NEW: Keir Starmer's Best Week In Office™ started with a defense spending pledge that came at the expense of foreign aid. But did it also hobble his promise to lead the world on climate?

/w @abbywallace7.bsky.social

www.politico.eu/article/keir...

Europe’s new industrial hope: Don’t just pick losers, create winners Tailoring what governments buy is ‘one of the most important ammunitions we have’ in fighting climate change and economic decline.

Europeans are about to plough €100s of bns into military build up. That means a LOT of steel.

What if some of that was used to build a homegrown, green steel industry and leapfrog EU steelmakers to the fore of the clean economy?

www.politico.eu/article/euro...

Europe’s new industrial hope: Don’t just pick losers, create winners Tailoring what governments buy is ‘one of the most important ammunitions we have’ in fighting climate change and economic decline.

NEW: To save European industry and halt climate change, the EU has landed on an elegantly simple idea that could tap into a €2 trillion pool of annual spending.

Governments, the EU executive said last week, should buy greener stuff.

Can it work?

www.politico.eu/article/euro...

I receive numerous requests from journalists regarding the current situation with the Intergovernemental Panel on Climate Change.

I am not involved in the work of the IPCC for the 7th Assessment Cycle (AR7).

1/...

Brussels considers major U-turn on green reporting rules Proposal to scrap so-called “double materiality” rule led to a fight within the EU executive.

🚨🚨🚨 SCOOP: There's a brutal game playing out in Brussels in real time as the EU Commission fights over whether to maintain rules that require companies to consider the damage they are doing to the planet.

@ziaweise.bsky.social has story.

www.politico.eu/article/eu-b...

The end of Germany’s climate crusade One of the world’s most climate-ambitious governments is about to fall, replaced by a likely chancellor who says green policy went too far.

NEW: Whatever happens in Germany’s election, one of the world’s most climate-ambitious governments will fall

In its place will likely rise a successor less focused on the fate of the world than on the fate of the Ruhr.

Though that may not be all bad for the climate

www.politico.eu/article/the-...

Nice to be named alongside pals and colleagues @dpcarrington.bsky.social, @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org, @stephspyro.bsky.social, Helena Horton, @luciemheath.bsky.social and Laura Hughes in the shortlist for UK Environment Journalist of the Year.

www.thepressawards.com/finalists/ka...