After days of negotiations, the G20 leaders, meeting in Rome, confirmed the Paris climate goals, without agreeing many new concrete measures. The Rome summit served as a warm-up for the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, which started on Sunday and will last two weeks.
‘Rome’ has not lived up to my expectations, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted, but has “not dashed all hopes either”.
President and host in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, said he was proud of the result, but also underlined that it is only one step of many. The UN conference, Draghi said, “can build on a fairly solid foundation” laid in Rome. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the atmosphere during the talks about climate “much more positive” than he had previously thought. “For the first time in years, real conclusions are being drawn at the G20,” Rutte said.
Also read: Who’s who at the Glasgow Summit?
The leaders of twenty economic and pollution powers agreed that they will aim for global warming of up to 2.0 degrees Celsius compared to the beginning of the industrial age. But they added that 1.5 degrees must remain “within range”. The earth has warmed by 1.1 degrees in the past two hundred years.
In addition, they stated in their final statement that from 2022 no more coal-fired power stations will be financed abroad. China already made that promise last month at the UN General Assembly, the G7 countries already made that promise this spring.
Closure of coal-fired power stations
So much for the modest good news from Rome. The leaders, who together account for 80 percent of the world’s economic strength and 80 percent of the CO2emissions, could not agree on the closure of coal-fired power plants or a moratorium on the construction of new power plants. Climate activists dismissed the final statement as inadequate because no concrete measures were mentioned to meet the 1.5-degree target.
A conflict about when countries should be climate neutral was settled with a compromise. The G20 leaders agreed that this should be achieved ‘by the middle of the century’. Rich democratic countries use 2050 as a target date. China and Russia are heading for 2060.
Draghi referred to the formulation as one of the achievements of Rome because until now people spoke of a CO2neutrality by the end of the century. Rutte called it a breakthrough: “We were sitting here at the table with twenty people representing countries that are jointly responsible for eighty percent of the global CO2 emissions.2emissions, and said: we want this. In the run-up to Glasgow, I really think this is a result.”
The Netherlands has not yet achieved its own climate targets. According to Rutte, the next government will “without any doubt” put more money into climate. “With the explicit intention of achieving the targets,” he says. “If you do this quickly and lead the way, you can create a lot of new jobs through innovation. In 2030, perhaps 1 to 2 million of the 10 million jobs in the Netherlands will go in this direction.”
Real conclusions are drawn at the G20 for the first time in years
Prime Minister Mark Rutte
China, Australia, India and Russia faced diplomats from the United Kingdom and the European Union in negotiations over coal, the most harmful fossil fuel. China and India have based their economic progress on coal, Australia and Russia earn from its exports.
As chairman of ‘Glasgow’, the UK actually wants to herald the end of coal as a common fuel. Western countries, among other things, put pressure on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to say goodbye to coal. In the run-up to the summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping by telephone to phase out coal. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi was not in Rome, but reported by video link.
After a moderate warm-up, all attention will turn to the real game from this Monday. While G20 leaders clashed over climate in Rome on Sunday morning, the first of two hundred national delegations arrived in Glasgow. Greta Thunberg (18), who as a student managed to mobilize young people all over the world for the climate, also arrived in Scotland on Sunday.
In addition to demonstrators, expect guest appearances from a slew of international VIPs in the coming weeks, such as Bill Gates, who take part in side events in the city itself and in the surrounding countryside. Gates, for example, will present a fund to finance green technology with the European Union.
Painful measures
The negotiations in Glasgow are more difficult than the negotiations in Paris in 2015. Then it was about objectives for the future. Now it is about painful measures to achieve those objectives.
Also read: Scottish Prime Minister Sturgeon wants to go a little faster than the UK with the climate
Moreover, the talks are now taking place in much more difficult geopolitical relationships than they were at the time. In fact, 2015 was the last year in which major multilateral breakthroughs were achieved. In addition to the success of Paris, the United Nations agreed on the sustainability goals (SDGs) that year and in the autumn of 2015, Iran reached a nuclear deal with the world community after ten years of negotiations, in which it promised to limit nuclear activities to a minimum.
After that, the multilateral order got into trouble. China became increasingly self-confident and took an antagonistic course with the West. Relations between the West and Russia reached an all-time low due to the annexation of Crimea, meddling in Ukraine, the aftermath of the downing of flight MH17 and Russian support for the Assad regime in Syria. In the West itself, nationalism was gaining ground. The UK turned its back on the EU, Donald Trump withdrew from the Climate Agreement and pushed the Iran nuclear deal off the rails. The UN played only a minor role in the pandemic. In the vaccination offensive, rich countries come first.
In Rome, in any case, the G20 leaders pledged to make an effort to make the climate conference in Glasgow a success. “We look forward to a successful COP26.” Rutte will travel to Glasgow this Monday. “I will emphasize the urgency of this moment. This is one of the last chances we have to take that corner together. We must do this, and we must do it now. Action, action, action”.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of November 1, 2021
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