G20 sends a mixed signal in fight against global warming

The final release reaffirms the objectives of the Paris Agreement, first recognizes the importance of achieving carbon neutrality and ends the public funding for new coal-borders outside the borders of the member countries.

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From one crisis to another, from one peak to another. Participants at COP26, which opened on Sunday, October 31 in Glasgow, spent the day with a look at the ultimate talks of the G20 in Rome. Their hopes of a favorable signal in the fight against climate change have been half-granted by the top twenty economies of the planet (European Union, United States, China, India, etc.), responsible for 80% of emissions global greenhouse gases.

The G20 countries welcomed themselves: they will not arrive empty hands at the United Nations Conference on the Climate, where 196 countries and more than 30,000 delegates converged in recent hours to accelerate The fight against warming, which worsens everywhere on the globe, at unprecedented levels. After two days of summit, Heads of State and Government of the G20 have found a compromise likely to give a minimum of momentum to COP26, despite the fractures of the moment, exacerbated by the pandemic of Covid-19.

But, to house susceptibilities, they have also made dead ends that may be so many breaches that are difficult to fill in the debates of the climate conference. And the commitments on which they agreed on Sunday in Rome may not be sufficient to blow up on COP26 a real wind of hope.

“Not enough”

“I welcome the renewed commitment of the G20 in favor of solutions at the global level, but I leave Rome with disappointed hopes – even if they are not buried,” said UN Secretary-General on Twitter , Antonio Guterres. “We have made reasonable progress to the G20, but it’s not enough,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country presides over the COP26. And to warn: “If Glasgow fails, that’s all that fails.”

The Final G20 communiqué , negotiated all night from Saturday to Sunday, thus reaffirms the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement, sealed in 2015, namely” maintain the average increase in temperatures well in below 2 ° C and continue efforts to limit it to 1.5 ° C above pre-industrial levels “. It adds that the impacts of climate change will be “much less than 1.5 ° C than at 2 ° C” and that “preserve 1.5 ° C within reach will require significant and effective actions and commitments of all countries. ” It also notes the need to “take new measures during this decade”. “These mentions are an important signal,” Judge Alden Meyer, expert at the E3G reflection center and a connoisseur of climate negotiations. The game was not won because many countries hinder four irons, such as India, Russia or Saudi Arabia.

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/Media reports.