© Reuters. During the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rome, Italy, October 30, 2021, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Joe Bye Deng took a group photo before the meeting. Kirsty w
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Authors: Gavin Jones and Jan Strupczewski
Rome (Reuters)-Leaders of the G20 held their first face-to-face summit in two years, working on Sunday to overcome disagreements on how to deal with global warming before the key UN meeting https:// www.reuters.com/business/ environment/sticking-points-un-climate-conference-2021-10-18 on climate change.
Diplomats worked all night to agree on the wording of the traditional final communiqué. But an official from one of the delegations, who asked not to be named, said there was no sign of any major progress.
“Addressing climate change is the decisive challenge of our time,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who served as G20 chairman this year, told other leaders at the beginning of the day’s discussion.
“Either we take action now to face the costs of transformation and try to steer our economy on a more sustainable path, or we delay, pay a higher price later and risk failure. As the draft press release shows a reduction in pollution Or meager results have been achieved in the new promise of greenhouse gases, climatologists and activists https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-demonstrate-rome-g20-discuss-climate-2021- 10-30 It is likely to be disappointed, unless a breakthrough is made later.
The G20 group, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany, and the United States, accounts for about 80% of global natural gas emissions, and scientists say they must drastically cut these emissions to avoid climate catastrophe.
For this reason, this weekend’s gathering is seen as an important stepping stone towards the United Nations climate summit COP26 in Glasgow. The rally will attract nearly 200 countries https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/cop26-glasgow-who-is-going-who-is-not-2021-10-15 and most of the G20 leaders’ Drive” there directly from Rome.
Oscar Soria of Avaaz, an activist network, said: “The latest report is disappointing and there is almost no sense of urgency in the face of an existential crisis.” “There is no more time to formulate a vague wish list. We need specific commitments and Action.”
Medieval goals
Compared with the previous version, the fifth draft of the G20 final declaration seen by Reuters on Saturday did not strengthen the wording of climate action. In some key areas, such as the need to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, she softened it.
The target date for the mid-century is what UN experts say is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-targets-making-sense-promises-2021- 10 -18 is considered to be the limit to avoid drastic climate change.
UN experts said that even if the current national emission reduction plan is fully implemented, the world is heading towards a temperature of 2.7°C.
The United Nations says this will exacerbate the damage already caused by climate change as storms intensify, exposing more people to deadly heat and floods, killing coral reefs and destroying natural habitats.
China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2060, and other major polluters such as India and Russia have failed to commit to completion by the mid-term market deadline.
The G20 energy and environment ministers, who met in Naples in July, failed to agree on a date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and ending coal power https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-un-coal-demand-idAFL4N2RI1DL, Leaders are required to find a solution at the summit this weekend.
According to the latest draft, they have made little progress, promising to “do their best” to stop new coal-fired power plants by the end of the 2030s, and announced that they will phase out fuel subsidies and “medium-term” fossil fuels.
On the other hand, they promised to stop funding overseas coal-fired power generation before the end of this year.
Some developing countries are unwilling to commit to substantial reductions in emissions until rich countries fulfill their 12-year commitment to provide 100 billion U.S. dollars a year from 2020 to help them cope with the emissions impact of global warming.
This promise has not been fulfilled and has exacerbated “distrust,” which, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is hindering the progress of climate negotiations.
World leaders will start COP26 on Monday, a two-day speech may include new emission reduction commitments, and then technical negotiators will discuss the rules in detail https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-targets-making- sense-promises of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement-2021-10-18.
Any transaction may be concluded a few hours or even days after the event’s end date on November 12th.