G20 declaration on climate goal ‘a missed opportunity’

Unfunded ambition gets us nowhere fast, says Barbados special envoy on climate finance

Support for a bid to contain global warming by world leaders during a G20 meeting in Bali on Wednesday appeared to support climate negotiations at the COP27 summit running in parallel in Egypt.

The boost came as talks among nearly the 200 nations at the resort town of Sharm elsheikh risked stalling out over core issues like climate finance and limiting planetary warming at 1.5°C, the point at which scientists fear far more severe climate change impacts will be unleashed.

A G20 declaration on Wednesday said “we will play our part fully” in implementing last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact, under which countries pledged to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times.

“We resolve to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. This will require meaningful and effective actions and commitment by all countries,” the Bali declaration says.

Delegates in Egypt have been watching the G20 summit closely for signs rich nations are willing to make new commitments on climate change, even as their focus is distracted by other crises like Russia’s war on Ukraine and rampant inflation.

“We welcome this declaration, but it means all G20 countries must raise the ambition of their 2030 targets by this year or next, to ensure the climate doesn’t overshoot the 1.5°C target,” said Ghana delegate Henry Kokofu, who also represents the Climate Vulnerable Forum.

“The COP27 outcome must reflect a far stronger sense of urgency and obligation from the major emitters,” he said. “As things stand, the Glasgow Pact is broken, but the G20 have the opportunity to fix it.”

The G20 declaration recognises the need to phase down use of unabated coal and phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. It says industrialised countries should make progress on climate finance – essentially restating goals made at previous summit.

India, the world’s secondbiggest buyer of coal, has said at COP27 that it wants countries to agree to phase down all fossil fuels, rather than just coal, as agreed at COP26 last year.

That proposal would benefit India. But it is a sore point for African and Middle Eastern countries keen to develop their oil and natural gas resources.

Saudi Arabia has said it wants to avoid a deal that would “demonize” oil and gas.

But Avinash Persaud, special envoy on climate finance to Prime Minister Mia Motley of Barbados, said the G20 declaration missed the mark on finance.

“Unfunded ambition gets us nowhere fast,” Persaud said, adding he wanted G20 countries to unlock more lending from multilateral development banks they control to help climate-vulnerable countries.

“They have missed the opportunity to deliver on that today, and we are running out of time.”

BLOB

The Bali G20 summit led to an agreement between the world’s top two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, the US and China, to resume climate co-operation after a hiatus triggered by diplomatic tensions over Taiwan.

And a coalition of countries announced at G20 it would mobilise $20bn of public and private finance to help Indonesia shut coal power plants, following a similar deal last year for SA.