The Group of 20’s leaders’ summit ended Sunday with an agreement on climate that commits its member nations to end coal financing by the end of the year and aims to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
But the final communiqué lacked firm pledges and failed to put an end date on the actual use of coal. It didn’t make any commitments to improve on issues like climate finance, paving the way for difficult negotiations at the COP26 summit.
Mohamed Adow, director of the climate energy think tank Power Shift Africa, said the message from the G20 was “weak.”
“This weak statement from the G20 is what happens when developing countries who are bearing the full force of the climate crisis are shut out of the room. The world’s biggest economies comprehensively failed to put climate change on the top of the agenda ahead of COP26 in Glasgow,” Adow said.
In the final statement, the 20 biggest world economies said they “would accelerate our actions” to achieve net-zero emissions by or around mid-century. Leaders for the first time acknowledged officially that its members’ emissions reductions plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), needed to be firmed up over this decade to put them on track for net zero by 2050.
They said they recognized that “G20 members can significantly contribute to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions” and committed “to take further action this decade” on enhancing “where necessary” their emissions-reductions pledges for the year 2030.
“We recognize that the impacts of climate change at 1.5°C are much lower than at 2°C,” the communiqué states.
“Keeping 1.5°C within reach will require meaningful and effective actions and commitment by all countries, taking into account different approaches, through the development of clear national pathways that align long-term ambition with short- and medium-term goals, and with international cooperation and support, including finance and technology, sustainable and responsible consumption and production as critical enablers, in the context of sustainable development.”
Read more about the agreement here: