By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Group of 20 ministers are likely to end talks this week without an ambitious deal on climate change, another setback in the fight against rising temperatures ahead of key negotiations this year.
Energy and environment ministers at a G-20 meeting in Naples, Italy, are stuck on a number of issues, according to several officials and diplomats familiar with the discussions, Aljazeera reports.
They will kick a final decision to a meeting of their leaders in October.
The parties haven’t been able to agree on specific actions and firm timetables needed to reach net-zero global emissions by 2050 and keep global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a draft communique and the officials.
Despite major net-zero commitments from the world’s largest polluters in the past 12 months — and a backdrop of dramatic weather events — two people familiar with the talks said it would be extremely difficult to reach a substantive agreement given the scale of the differences.
Securing an ambitious plan is one the main goals of the G-20 this year, ahead of international climate talks known as COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November.
For a second time this month, G-20 ministers will fail to agree on net zero greenhouse gas emissions or keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees — the lower end of the goal agreed in Paris in 2015. Instead, the ministers only recognized “the impacts of climate change at 1.5°C are much lower than at 2°C.”
“Failure to agree a G-20 climate communique would be a stark warning for COP26,” said Tom Evans, a researcher at think tank E3G in London. “Without leaders stepping up where ministers have failed, it will be nearly impossible to see how COP26 can possibly deliver on its stated mission” to keep the 1.5-degree goal alive.
Ending the use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is one sticking point, as G-20 chair Italy is pushing for a phase-out to be included in the communique for the first time.
But the draft document shows the group won’t commit to ending the use of coal domestically, and only urges its members to follow the G-7 in ending overseas coal finance.