The Osaka G20 summit ended on the morning of Saturday 29 June with a 19-party agreement - without the United States - confirming the commitment of the world's 19 largest economies to fully implement the Paris Agreement on climate change, a minimalist result, insufficient for the EU, but which at least has the merit of maintaining the status quo compared to the G20 summits of Buenos Aires and Hamburg (see EUROPE 12285/9).
This G20 has shown the failure of the United States to convince other countries to turn their backs on the Universal Agreement reached in Paris in 2015 and to water down the content of the final declaration - a relief for Europeans who had championed multilateralism to tackle a global challenge.
"Signatories to the Paris Agreement, who confirmed at Buenos Aires its irreversibility and are determined to implement it, reaffirm their commitment to its full implementation," the final declaration states.
The leaders of the 19 also say they expect the success of the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September in New York, convened by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, to raise the level of ambition of the commitments made and the concrete results at the COP 25 ( in December in Santiago, Chile).
In addition, they affirm that by 2020, they aim to communicate, update or maintain, their nationally determined contribution (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement "taking into account that further global efforts are needed". This is an improvement of the text, compared to the final statements of the two previous G20 summits, which did not contain any forward-looking information on NDCs.
The leaders of the 19 also emphasise the importance of providing financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, in accordance with the Paris Agreement, which provides for the mobilisation of €100 billion per year by 2020 and beyond.
The United States, for its part, reiterated in the final declaration, "its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because it disadvantages American workers and taxpayers", while stating that it remains "committed to the development and deployment of advanced technologies to continue to reduce emissions and provide for a cleaner environment".
"In Osaka, we acknowledged the commitment of all G20 members, with the exception of the United States, to the implementation and irreversibility of the Paris Agreement. We will continue to make progress on the essential topic of climate change", French President Emmanuel Macron told the press. "We avoided going backwards. Is this satisfactory? No, but the red lines have not been crossed", he said, referring to both climate and trade.
And to ensure that the French Presidency of the G7 "will endeavour to implement coalitions of concrete actions to combat global warming and promote biodiversity". It wishes, in particular, to have a concrete commitment by industrialists and governments on HFCs, within the framework of the G7, but by rallying other powers.
In addition, according to Mr Macron, it is "quite feasible" for the EU to agree on a climate neutrality objective for 2050, "by summer".
NGOs' call for intensified action. "The G19's determination to act on climate remains unwavering, but what we need now is swift action to address the climate emergency", Greenpeace International Executive Director, Jennifer Morgan said in a statement. The NGO expects the G19 leaders to attend the 23 September Summit and the COP 25 "with clear and transparent commitments to ram up action". According to the NGO, "weak long-term climate strategies - such as those of G20 host Japan and its reliance on high efficiency power plants or carbon capture and storage – fail to address the carbon pollution problem at its source". (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)