G20 leaders face tough climate talks on 2nd day of summit

Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies sit down for a second day of talks on Sunday faced with the difficult task of bridging their differences on how to combat global warming ahead of a crucial United Nations summit on climate change.

The first day of the Rome summit – the leaders’ first face-to-face gathering since the start of the COVID pandemic – focused mainly on health and the economy, while climate and the environment is front and centre of Sunday’s agenda, reports Reuters.

Climate scientists and activists are likely to be disappointed unless late breakthroughs are made, with drafts of the G20’s final communique showing little progress in terms of new commitments to curb pollution.

The G20 bloc, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for an estimated 80% of the global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say must be steeply reduced to avoid climate catastrophe.

For that reason, this weekend’s gathering is seen as an important stepping stone to the UN’s “COP26” climate summit attended by almost 200 countries, in Glasgow, Scotland, where most of the G20 leaders will fly directly from Rome.

“The latest reports are disappointing, with little sense of urgency in the face of an existential emergency,” said Oscar Soria of the activist network Avaaz. “There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action.”

A fifth draft of the G20’s final statement seen by Reuters on Saturday did not toughen the language on climate action compared with previous versions, and in some key areas, such as the need to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, it softened it.

This mid-century target date is a goal that United Nations experts say is needed to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, seen as the limit to avoid a dramatic acceleration of extreme events such as droughts, storms and floods.