Powerful countries aspire to contain warming to 1.5 degrees and agree to stop financing coal plants
The G20 summit in Rome, the first face-to-face meeting of world leaders after the hiatus of the pandemic, concluded this Sunday with a minimum agreement to face the climate emergency, probably the greatest challenge facing humanity today. Despite the insistence of the host, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, in presenting the final document approved in the Eternal City as an “extraordinary success”, the reality is that the text takes up several previous commitments to try to stop global warming and reduce the great expectations generated by this event, the prelude to the climate summit convened in Glasgow by the UN (COP26).
There are four points in particular in the final declaration of the G20 meeting to try to stop climate change. The first is to prevent the global temperature of the planet from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, although the text uses only vague “effective actions” to limit that figure, already set at the climate summit held in Paris in 2015 The second agreement of the meeting this weekend in Rome is the creation of an international fund that must dedicate 100,000 million euros per year until 2025 to finance the ecological transition in countries with fewer resources.
This is also a commitment already mentioned in previous appointments, although until now the rich nations had barely scratched their pockets to fulfill it. Italy, which acted as host at the summit as it held the transitional presidency of the G20 this year, tried to lead by example and assured that it will dedicate 1.4 billion euros to this fund. It is now expected that other nations, starting with the United States, will join in the rain of millions for the ‘green revolution’ that will be necessary for countries with fewer resources to base their development not on fossil fuels, but on renewable energy.
Although in the run-up to the G20 there was speculation that the summit might conclude with a commitment to achieve zero emissions of polluting gases by 2050, as the European Union and the United States claim, the final document uses a much more vague formula: “Around the middle of the century.” Large polluters such as China, India and Russia, which together account for 40% of the planet’s total emissions, lobbied for the final document not to include a specific date. The Government of China, whose president, Xi Jinping, participated in the summit by videoconference, had already announced that it was not willing to reach that commitment before 2060. The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who also did not travel, was in the same vein to Rome and intervened remotely in the talks.
In his attempt to present the outcome of the summit as a success, Draghi applauded the assignments made by the Beijing and Moscow delegations to accept the emission limitations imposed by the final document. “I expected a more rigid attitude from China,” commented the host of the summit, underlining the “notable sacrifices, which are not easy to maintain,” that the Chinese and Russians will have to make so that the global temperature of the planet does not rise more than 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.
Without carbon
‘China produces half of the world’s steel and many of its steelworks run on coal. It will not be an easy transition, “he acknowledged. The fourth substantial point of the final declaration to try to stop global warming is the decision to stop dedicating public money to finance electricity generation plants that use coal, as they are highly polluting. The participants in the summit assure that they will comply with this point immediately: before the end of 2021.
With this combination of decisions, Draghi was convinced that environmental activists who push politicians from the streets to take the challenge of climate change seriously can be satisfied. “Many say they are tired of ‘blah blah blah’, but I think that with this summit we have filled the words with substance,” he said, referring to the criticism launched by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
Also satisfied was US President Joe Biden, who assured that “tangible” results had been achieved in the climate, the pandemic and the economy. “We are not going to switch to renewable energy overnight, but for now we will stop financing coal. It is not realistic to suddenly stop using gasoline and gas, but we will reach zero emissions in 2050, “promised the US leader. Prince Charles of England, who participated in a meeting on how private initiative can contribute to fighting climate change, recalled that the decisions taken today will affect “generations that have not yet been born.”
Civil society organizations reacted coldly to the conclusions of the Rome meeting. “Despite some steps forward, the results have not kept up with the great global challenges, such as the climate crisis and the pandemic. We must move from words to actions urgently, “demanded Save the Children, calling for a” fairer, healthier and greener world “for children. Emily Wigens, director of the European Union of the One Campaign organization, assured for her part that the summit had failed to mark a turning point with the pandemic. “It costs the G20 nothing to make promises and not keep them, but these promises do count for the countries that are suffering the most severely from the consequences of the pandemic,” Wigens denounced.
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