Rome: Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies agreed on a final statement on Sunday that urged “meaningful and effective” action to limit global warming but offered few concrete commitments and disappointed climate activists. The result of days of tough negotiation among diplomats leaves huge work to be done at a broader UN COP26 climate summit in Scotland, to where most of the G20 leaders will fly directly from Rome.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, who warned that the world was rushing headlong towards climate disaster, said the Rome summit neither fulfilled his hopes nor buried them. “While I welcome the #G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled — but at least they are not buried,” he said in a tweet. “Onwards to #COP26 in Glasgow to keep the goal of 1.5 degrees alive and to implement promises on finance and adaptation for people & planet.” The1.5°C threshold is what UN experts say must be met to avoid a dramatic acceleration of extreme climate events like droughts, storms and floods, and to reach it they recommend net zero emissions should be achieved by 2050.
The G20 bloc, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the US, accounts for an estimated 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The final document says current national plans on how to curb emissions will have to be strengthened “if necessary” and makes no specific reference to 2050 as a date to achieve net zero carbon emissions. “We recognise that the impacts of climate change at 1.5°C are much lower than at 2°C. Keeping 1.5°C within reach will require meaningful and effective actions and commitment by all countries,” the communique said.
The leaders only recognised “the key relevance” of halting net emissions “by or around mid-century”, a phrase that removed the 2050 date seen in previous versions of the final statement so as to make the target less specific. China, the world’s biggest CO2 emitter, has set a target date of 2060, and other large polluters such as India and Russia have also not committed to the 2050 target date.
The final G20 statement includes a pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year, but set no date for phasing out coal power, promising only to do so “as soon as possible”.
