With less than three months to go until COP28 in Dubai, which will be an opportunity to assess the implementation of the Paris Agreement on a global scale, the meeting of the leaders of the G20 countries ended on Sunday 10 September without the significant progress hoped for on the climate front. This meeting in New Delhi was particularly important after a summer marked by record temperatures (see EUROPE 13244/27), signalling a year which, according to Copernicus, will be the hottest in human history.
Despite this, the world’s 20 major powers, who recognised in their joint declaration the urgent need to “accelerate (their) actions” to tackle the climate crisis, did not reached any agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.
And while a UN report published on the eve of the negotiations said that this last point was essential to fight against climate change, urging that “much more is needed now, on all fronts”, no target was set on this matter. The G20 leaders merely pledged to “accelerate clean, sustainable, just, affordable and inclusive energy transitions following various pathways”.
However, they did announce their intention to triple, for the first time, the world’s renewable energy production capacity through existing targets and policies, a measure supported ahead of the negotiations by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel (see EUROPE 13246/13).
Although it was anticipated that the search for a consensus would be hampered by the position of Saudi Arabia, a major oil exporter (see EUROPE 13246/13), and by the increase in coal consumption in China and India, the results obtained almost a year after the Bali meeting, at which a clear position was set out in favour of phasing out coal (see EUROPE 13064/20), have clearly shown no sign of progress.
The situation provoked reactions.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his frustration on 10 September by stating at a press conference that the conclusions on these issues were “insufficient”, recalling that a global phase-out of coal should take place “very quickly and much more quickly than today”, as early as 2030, and that the phase-out of oil should take place “as quickly as possible”, i.e. “well before 2050”.
These words echoed those of Margarita Pirovska, Policy Director of PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment), an international network of financial institutions supported by the United Nations. “The results of this weekend’s summit in New Delhi were once again insufficient, falling far short of the bold action required”, she said in a statement on Monday 11 September.
However, the G20 reaffirmed its commitment to the Paris Agreement and its objective of keeping the global temperature increase below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with an additional effort to limit the increase to 1.5°C. The G20 also recognised the need for rapid and significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, aiming for a reduction of “43% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels”.
With regard to the climate finance, another sensitive issue at the summit, the G20 reaffirmed the “commitment made in 2010 by the developed countries to the goal of mobilising jointly €100 billion climate finance per year by 2020, and annually through 2025, to address the needs of the developing countries”.
In addition, the G20 is calling for a new joint quantified target for climate finance in 2024. The declaration emphasises the importance of gender equality in the fight against climate change, by encouraging the participation and leadership of women.
See the G20 declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/8hy (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)