G-20 make mild pledges on climate neutrality, coal financing
Leaders disappointed in summit outcome
ROME — Leaders of the world’s biggest economies agreed Sunday to stop funding coal-fired power plants in poor countries and made a vague commitment to seek carbon neutrality “by or around mid-century” as they wrapped up a Rome summit before the much larger United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
While Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French President Emmanuel Macron described the Group of 20 summit as a success, the outcome disappointed climate activists, the chief of the U.N. and Britain’s leader. The U.K. is hosting the two-week Glasgow conference and had looked for more ambitious targets to come out of Rome.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the G-20’s commitments mere “drops in a rapidly warming ocean.” U.N. SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres agreed the outcome was not enough.
“While I welcome the #G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled — but at least they are not buried,” Guterres tweeted. “Onwards to #COP26 in Glasgow.”
The G-20 countries represent more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and Britain had hoped for a “G-20 bounce” going into the Glasgow COP26 meeting.
Environmentalists and scientists have described the U.N. conference as the world’s “last best hope” for nailing down commitments to limit the global rise in temperature to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial average.
The summit laid bare the divisions that still exist between Western countries that polluted the planet the most historically but are now seeing emissions decline and the emerging economies led by China whose emissions are rising as their economies grow.
Britain pushed for a commitment to achieve climate neutrality or netzero emissions, meaning a balance between greenhouse gases added to and removed from the atmosphere, by 2050.
The United States and the European Union have set 2050 as their own deadline for reaching net-zero emissions, while China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are aiming for 2060. The leaders of those three countries didn’t come to Rome for the summit.
In the end, the G-20 leaders arrived at a compromise to achieve climate neutrality “by or around mid-century,” not a set year.
Before leaving Rome, U.S. President Joe Biden called it “disappointing’ that G-20 members Russia and China ’basically didn’t show up” with commitments to address the scourge of climate change ahead of the U.N. climate conference.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are not expected to attend the conference in Glasgow, although they are sending senior officials to the international COP26 talks.
“The disappointment relates to the fact that Russia…and China basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change. And there’s a reason why people should be disappointed,” Biden said, adding: “I found it disappointing myself.”