Commitments on climate neutrality, coal finance made at the G20

The leaders of the world’s largest economies pledged on Sunday to achieve carbon neutrality “by the middle of the century or towards the middle of the century” when they concluded a two-day summit that was laying the groundwork for the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

According to the final statement, the leaders of the Group of 20 also agreed to end public funding for coal-based power generation abroad, but did not set any targets to phase out coal domestically, a clear nod to the coal-dependent countries, including China and India, and a coup. Britain, who expected stronger commitments before the Glasgow meeting.

The Group of 20 countries account for more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and the host of the summit, Italy, had been seeking strong targets on how to reduce emissions and help poor countries to deal with the impact of rising temperatures.

Without them, momentum could be lost for the broader annual talks that officially opened in Glasgow on Sunday and where countries from around the world will be represented, including the poor most vulnerable to sea level rise, desertification and other impacts.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told leaders ahead of Sunday’s final working session that they needed to both set long-term goals and make short-term changes to achieve them.

“We must accelerate the phase-out of coal and invest more in renewable energy,” he said. “We also need to make sure that we use available resources wisely, which means that we should be able to adapt our technologies and also our lifestyles.” to this new world. “

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According to the statement, the G-20 reaffirmed past commitments by rich countries to mobilize $ 100 billion annually to help the poorest countries cope with climate change and pledged to increase funding to help them adapt.

The sticking point remained the deadline for achieving carbon neutrality or “net zero” emissions, that is, a balance between greenhouse gases added to and removed from the atmosphere. Going to the summit, Italy had almost admitted that it would only be able to secure commitments to achieve net zero emissions “by mid-century”, rather than a specific year.

According to the final statement, the G-20 leaders said they will “accelerate our actions in mitigation, adaptation and finance, recognizing the key importance of achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by mid-century.”

A French official said that “mid-century” meant 2050 strictly speaking “but given the diversity of the G20 countries … it means that they all agree on a common goal while providing a bit of flexibility to have take into account national diversity “. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the French official cited China and India, the main carbon polluters, as well as Indonesia.

Some countries have set 2050 as the cutoff date for net zero emissions, while China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are targeting 2060.

The future of coal, a key source of greenhouse gas emissions, has been one of the hardest things for the G-20 to agree on.

At the Rome summit, the leaders agreed “to end the provision of international public financing for new generation of coal power abroad by the end of 2021.”

That refers to financial support for the construction of coal plants abroad, something that Western countries have been moving away from and major Asian economies are now doing the same: Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at the Assembly. UN General last month that Beijing would stop funding such projects, and Japan and South Korea made similar commitments earlier in the year.

The G-20’s failure to set a target to eliminate domestic use of coal was a blow to Britain, which expected progress on the issue at COP26. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said the G-20 communiqué “was never intended to be the main lever to secure commitments on climate change”, which would materialize at the Glasgow summit.

He said the UK will continue to push for “ambitious commitments” on coal.

Young climate activists Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate issued an open letter to the media as the G-20 was wrapping up, emphasizing three fundamental aspects of the climate crisis that are often downplayed: that time is running out, that any solution must bring justice to those most affected by climate change, and that the biggest polluters often hide behind incomplete statistics on their true emissions.

“The climate crisis will only get more urgent. We can still avoid the worst consequences, we can still reverse this. But not if we continue like today, “they wrote, just weeks after Thunberg shamed world leaders for his” blah blah blah “rhetoric during a youth climate summit in Milan.

Britain’s Prince Charles addressed the G-20 on Sunday morning, urging leaders to listen to young people who are inheriting global warming, warning that “it is literally the hall of last chance.”

Charles, a longtime environmental activist, said public-private partnerships were the only way to achieve the trillions of dollars in annual investment needed to transition to clean, sustainable energy sources that will mitigate warming global temperatures.

“It is impossible not to hear the desperate voices of young people who see them as the stewards of the planet, who have the viability of their future in their hands,” said Charles.

Associated Press editors Jill Lawless and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.