Meeting in Bali at the same time as the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, G20 leaders confirmed their commitment on Wednesday 16 November to implement the Paris Agreement and, in particular, to try their best to keep the global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. They also stressed the need to reach an agreement in December over the ambitious framework for global biodiversity at COP15 in Montreal.
With regard to both of these international challenges, they emphasised the need for increased funding, especially in terms of providing more support to developing countries.
“We acknowledge the urgent need to strengthen policies and mobilize financing, from all sources in a predictable, adequate and timely manner to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation including significantly increasing support for developing countries.”, said the final declaration.
G20 leaders are calling on all parties to urgently scale up mitigation and adaptation ambitions and means of implementation as well as make progress on the issue of financial compensation for loss and damage, which is particularly close to the heart of developing countries, but remains unresolved in Sharm El Sheikh.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, welcomed the outcome of a G20 that managed to tackle “global challenges”.
“Despite the war, we have continued to make progress on climate and biodiversity”, said French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at a press conference of a “G20 that represented confirmation and clarification”.
“The G20 remains committed to the 1.5 degree Celsius warming target”, he said.. He also added, “We have made progress with a clear commitment to phase out coal. This is the first time that the G20 has adopted such a clear position regarding the exit from coal”.
In its final declaration, the G20 emphasises the importance of adopting policies to ensure the transition to low-emission energy systems, to rapidly scale up the deployment of clean electricity generation and energy efficiency measures, “including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power, in line with national circumstances and recognising the need for support towards just transitions”.
The French President was also pleased that after the signing of the South African energy transition partnership, which was launched in Glasgow during COP26 and finalised in Egypt, a similar partnership with Indonesia was initiated in the margins of the G20 in Sharm El Sheikh.
For COP15 on biodiversity (7–19 December), the G20 is calling for the adoption in Montreal of an “ambitious, balanced, practical, effective, robust and transformative” framework for global biodiversity “as a strong framework of action and accountability for halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and, as appropriate, to update National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans accordingly”.
The framework should contain “clear and measurable goals and targets” and be accompanied by a robust monitoring mechanism, according to the G20.
The leaders commit to “scale up efforts to combat biodiversity loss, deforestation, desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as restoring degraded land to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030”. The declaration also mentions the G20’s ambition to reduce land degradation by 50% by 2040, on a voluntary basis.
The G20 says it will “strive” to ensure, for Montreal, that at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of the global ocean and seas are conserved or protected by 2030 – a goal that the EU is pursuing but which has not been agreed upon in the current negotiations (see EUROPE 13049/2).
See the final declaration of the Bali G20: https://aeur.eu/f/437 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)