Climate conference brings leaders face-to-face

Special Desk

Since pandemic stalled everything in the world, for the first time the G20 leaders are meeting face-to-face in Italy. Barring China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin who are not in Rome for the summit, choosing to appear via video link instead the other top leaders are meeting.
Climate change and Covid are top of the agenda of leaders from the world’s major economies. The talks come amid increasingly dire warnings for the future if urgent action is not taken to cut emissions.

The G20 group – made up of 19 countries and the European Union – is estimated to account for 80% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi opened the two-day summit, telling world leaders that going it alone is simply not an option. We must do all we can to overcome our differences.

The summit will set the tone for the COP26 summit in Glasgow which begins on Monday, and there are still sharp divisions between countries on their commitments to tackling climate change. “Multilateralism is the best answer to the problems we face today. In many ways it is the only possible answer,” said Draghi.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson described climate change as the biggest threat to humanity, saying it posed a risk to civilisation basically going backwards. However, he acknowledged that neither the G20 meeting nor COP26 would halt global warming, but could, if the right measures were taken, restrict the growth in the temperature of the planet.

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A draft communiqué outlines a promise from the G20 to work towards limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5C (2.7F), saying it will require meaningful and effective actions by all countries. The draft also notes the need for developed countries to mobilise $100bn (£73bn) annually from public and private sources through to 2025 to address the needs of developing countries so they can tackle climate change – a promise richer countries have failed to keep since 2009, when it was initially pledged.