G-20 leaders vow to end funding for overseas coal plants

The leaders of the G-20 meeting in Rome have agreed to work to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of the century “and pledged to end funding for coal plants abroad by the end of this year; however, they failed to agree on the gradual removal of coal within the country.

As I welcome the # G20 re-engagement with global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled, but at least they are not buried, wrote UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Twitter.

The leaders issued their final communiqué on Sunday at the end of a two-day summit, ahead of talks at a wider UN climate change summit, COP26, this week in Glasgow, Scotland.

They also addressed efforts to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in line with a global commitment made in 2015 to the Paris Climate Agreement to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and preferably 1.5 degrees.

“We recognize that the impacts of climate change at 1.5C are much lower than at 2C. Keeping 1.5C within reach will require meaningful and effective action and commitment from all countries,” the statement said.

U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking at a news conference in Rome on Sunday, said that while people were disappointed that the leaders of Russia and China did not show up with climate change commitments, the leaders who attended made significant progress.

“I think you will see that we have made significant progress and more needs to be done,” he said. It will require us to continue to focus on what China is not doing, what Russia is not doing, and what Saudi Arabia is not doing.

The 19-nation group and the European Union account for more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In October, two dozen countries joined a US-EU-led effort to reduce methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Coal, however, is a bigger point of contention. G-20 members China and India have resisted attempts to produce a statement on the abolition of domestic coal consumption.

Climate financing, namely promises from rich countries to provide $ 100 billion a year to support developing countries’ efforts to reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change, is another key concern. Indonesia, a major greenhouse gas emitter that will take over the G-20 presidency in December, called on developed countries to meet their financial commitments in both Rome and Glasgow.

Also Sunday, the US and EU announced an end to Trump-era tariffs on EU steel, resolving a dispute that saw the bloc impose retaliatory tariffs on US products, including whiskey and electricity ships.

“Together the United States and the European Union are opening a new era of transatlantic cooperation that will benefit all of our people as we do now, and I believe, in the years to come,” US President Joe Biden told reporters on the sidelines of the G-20 summits.

Global supply chain

Biden held a meeting to address the global supply chain crisis with 14 other members of the 20-nation group. The 20 members of the summit account for more than 80% of world GDP and 75% of global trade.

The US called on other countries to help reduce supply chain problems and announced new measures to make supply chains more resilient in the United States. Highlights of this new effort include simplifying U.S. stock-raising efforts, raising funds for trade facilitation activities to cut red tape, and organizing a summit next year with numerous foreign actors and counterparts. .

China in particular was absent from this meeting.

“Referring to the global dependence on Chinese goods, Biden urged countries to diversify their supply chains so that we are not dependent on any single source that could cause a failure.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country is considered to be the world factory, did not personally attend the summit. In his virtual speech to G-20 leaders, Xi proposed holding an international forum on resilient and sustainable industrial and supply chains.

Addressing global trade disruptions has been a major focus for the Biden administration, which is concerned that these obstacles will hamper the economic recovery following the pandemic. To address U.S. supply chain issues, the administration recently announced a plan to extend operations around the clock, seven days a week, to Los Angeles and Long Beach, two California ports that make up 40% of maritime freight entering place.

Whether you are talking about medical equipment or supplies of consumer goods or other products, it is a challenge for the global economy, said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Some of the concrete measures to alleviate global supply chain pressure points may need to be long-term, such as supply chain shortening and dependency rethinking, said Leslie Vinjamuri, US and US program director at Chatham House , a research institution in London.

These are not quick fixes, she said. But the G-20 has historically been designed to deal with short-term crises. So I think a lot of effort will be made to … agree with that.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters