The G20 leaders meeting in Rome on Sunday agreed to take steps to limit the global warming ceiling to 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial era. The agreement was reached after a night of lengthy negotiations, but details have yet to be released.
The G20’s intention was to reach an agreement on a common position for the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26), which began today in Glasgow, Scotland. In July, the meeting of G20 energy and environment ministers had failed to establish this common goal after China and India, big polluters, refused to accept it.
The G20, whose members accumulate 80% of the wealth and 60% of the world’s population, agreed investments of US$ 100 billion so that developing countries can implement policies that allow them to respect their environmental commitments.
In a first final declaration document, released to the media, the G20 expresses its commitment to “the full and effective implementation” of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement, of which the United States withdrew under Donald Trump.
“We remain committed to the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the global average temperature rise well below 2°C and continuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, also as a means to allow the 2030 Agenda to be fulfilled”, says the text.
G20 did not set a date for decarbonization
However, the G20 did not set 2050 as the date for decarbonisation, as set out in the Paris Agreement, but talk of doing it “around the middle of the century”. The text, while attesting to the willingness to take measures with this objective, also emphasizes that this will depend “on different national circumstances”.
The host prime minister, Italian Mario Draghi, minutes before the agreement came into being, called on his G20 partners in Rome to reach an agreement. “Some of us are wondering why they are taking our climate target from 2 degrees to 1.5. Why? Because science says so,” warned Draghi, president of the G20, to his partners in the Italian capital’s plenary.
Draghi urged them to implement the ecological transition to reduce emissions: “We cannot delay any longer. This transition requires significant effort and governments must be prepared to help their citizens and businesses,” he said.
The Paris Agreement stipulated the global goal of keeping global warming “well below” 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, while calling on countries to strive to limit it to 1.5 degrees, which ultimately was achieved today.
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