British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is in talks, will warn humanity about climate change on Monday.
“There is a minute before midnight and we must act now,” he said in his opening statement, according to comments sent to reporters.
“We need to move from talk, discussion and debate to real integrated action on coal, cars, money and trees. More hopes, goals and ambitions are not worth, but clear commitments and timelines for change.”
The G20 leaders’ meeting, which ended in Rome on Sunday, suggests that leaders are finally listening to the science, but they still lack the political unity to make the ambitious decisions needed to make that moment a reality.
Bringing together about 25,000 people at one of the largest international events since the pandemic, COP26 has claimed hundreds of lives in unexpected places after a year of severe weather, leaving even climate scientists unsafe.
All of these languages were in the G20 leaders’ report, and to get to net zero by the middle of this century, many member states will need to increase their emissions-reduction commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), this decade. .
The lack of a deadline for the use of coal, the largest contributor to climate change, and the need for all countries to reach net zero by 2050 (versus 2060 by China, Russia and Saudi Arabia) means that, however, countries that use and produce their fossil fuels will still Extensive global agreements on climate change.
Indeed, China’s long-awaited new pledge on emissions was introduced last week, more partially than its predecessor. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday that net zero won’t be strong until 2050. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has shown no interest in handing coal back to history. India has not pledged net zero, and as European lawmaker Bas Eckhout told CNN, it is one of the few countries against setting a date for a phased coal withdrawal.
Michael Mann, a senior scientist at Penn State University, is optimistic that leaders have agreed to increase emissions this decade, but more importantly, ensure that all major emitters have plans to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees. .
“And the ‘implementation gap’—that is, bridging the gap between what heads of state nominally promise and what they actually do,” Mann said.
Deere cautioned that COP26 should not be a summit to delay tactics, saying he remains confident that G20 leaders will agree to cut coal as a step in negotiations, even if they disagree.
The conservative International Energy Agency has stated that there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure to prevent dangerous warming. Mann said the G7 countries are determined to phase out coal and stop supporting new coal projects this summer.
“We need to see a similar commitment from the G20 countries, including a rapid timetable for coal phase-out.”
The G20 report promises to end offshore coal financing by the end of this year. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the termination of China’s financing of international coal, expelling the country’s largest global financier of coal projects.
Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the World Resources Organization, said the agreement and current emissions commitments were not ambitious enough to prevent further dangerous global warming, and that many countries were unlikely to increase their net worth. And you will get zero on the deadline. . projects.
“To achieve the 1.5°C target, countries must set climate targets for 2030 that set out a realistic path to meeting net-zero commitments,” he said in a statement.
“Currently, many G20 countries, including Australia, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Turkey, are not on a reliable path to achieving their zero-zero goals.”
Almost not enough
“My hopes were not fulfilled – but they were not buried,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday. He hoped Glasgow could “keep the 1.5-degree target alive”.
His comments reflect the mood of many at COP26. If the G-20 fails to set a deadline for coal and makes a clear commitment to net zero, the participation of the entire world on these important issues will simply not happen.
There is also an issue of trust. For more than a decade, developed countries have pledged to transfer $100 billion annually to the global south to advance the transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to the new world of the climate crisis.
That goal was not met last year, and last week’s COP26 Leadership Report shows that it won’t be met until 2023, with current commitments on hand.
Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, Chair of the Climate Vulnerability Forum, lamented the lack of action in the G20 report, particularly regarding the non-phasing out of coal. The Maldives is a major country in the climate crisis and is in danger of being inundated by the end of the century due to rising sea levels.
“This is a welcome start,” Nasheed said in a statement. But this will not prevent the climate from warming above 1.5 degrees and destroying large parts of the world, including the Maldives. So this is clearly not enough.”
Net zero, phasing out coal, and providing climate finance will remain priorities for negotiators. Agreeing to end deforestation and rehabilitation by 2030 and accelerating the transition to electric vehicles worldwide are other areas that could prove successful.
Tom Burke, co-founder of the E3G Climate Research Center, was very optimistic that the G-20 report showed a shift in leaders’ thinking about the urgency of the climate crisis.
“The big hit is this transition targeting 2050 to 2030,” he told CNN. “I think that’s a huge success.”
“Gives us a better start than we expected. The political agreement reached at the G20 will provide a political boost as leaders come together to launch the COP.”
