World looks to G20 for breakthrough in COP29 talks

Diplomatic tensions over global warming will take center stage at the G20 summit in Brazil this week, as negotiators at UN talks in Azerbaijan hit an impasse on climate finance that they hope leaders of the world’s 20 major economies can break.

Heads of state were arriving in Rio de Janeiro yesterday for the G20 summit that will spend today and tomorrow addressing issues from poverty and hunger to the reform of global institutions. Still, the ongoing UN climate talks have thrown a spotlight on their efforts to tackle global warming.

While the COP29 summit in Baku, is tasked with agreeing a goal to mobilize hundreds billions of dollars for the climate, leaders of the Group of 20 major economies half a world away in Rio are holding the purse strings.

G20 countries account for 85 percent of the world’s economy and are the largest contributors to multilateral development banks helping to steer climate finance.

They are also responsible for more than three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. “All countries must do their part. But the G20 must lead,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told COP29 last week.

Reaching such an accord may only get tougher with the return to power of US President-elect Donald Trump, who is reportedly preparing to again pull the US out of the Paris climate accord.

Trump is also planning to roll back landmark climate legislation passed by the outgoing Joe Biden, who will become the first US president to visit the Amazon rainforest when he makes a stop there on his way to Rio.

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