Trump isolated on climate issue at G-20

The divide between the US and the rest of the G-20 was all too evident at the Hamburg summit as 19 of the 20 leaders including India were able to agree on all points made in the joint declaration with the exception of Donald Trump who could not agree on climate change. Breaking with tradition, a separate paragraph on the US’ stance on the Paris climate agreement and fossil fuels was added. German Chancellor Angela Merkel who hosted the G-20 meeting said she “deplored” the decision by the US to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, but said that all other nations agree that the Paris climate accord is “irreversible”. British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “dismayed” at the US decision to leave the pact. She urged Trump to rejoin it. But Trump was unrelenting despite being isolated. There was an undercurrent of tension in the air at the unprecedented American decision to chart out its own course.

Merkel reiterated her statement that Europeans have to take their fate “in their own hands,” saying that while cooperation with the US is important, some topics like trade, steel in particular, are “difficult” to discuss with the Americans. Trump described his lengthy sit down with Putin as a “tremendous meeting” while Putin said he had established a working relationship with Trump. On terrorism, Theresa May repeated past calls for world leaders to do more to disrupt international finance streams for terror groups and to help stop foreign fighters returning to the west from conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. She also said the G-20 agreed to do more to combat domestic violent extremism and welcomed moves from technology companies to address the online spread of extremist content.

For India, Prime Minister Modi named Pakistan-based terror groups Lashkar –e-Taiba and Jaish e-Mohammad in the same vein as IS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. “Their only ideology is to spread hatred and commit massacres,” he added. He said all these groups had the same basic ideology even if they went by different names. Modi emphasised that nations today are not as well networked as terrorists are. Modi’s 11-point action agenda for fighting the global menace resonated at G-20 as he made a clear reference to Pakistan when he said “some nations are using terrorism for achieving political goals”.