By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Climate change and the relaunch of the global economy will top the G20 agenda as leaders of the world leaders opened the summit on Saturday taking a photo with healthcare workers who have been on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Looming over the two-day talks in Rome is pressure to make headway on tackling global warming, ahead of the key COP26 summit kicking off in Glasgow on Monday.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Rome to turn a page from the tumultuous Donald Trump years and show that American leadership on the world stage is restored.
Yet, Biden faces a credibility test as his own signature climate policy – part of a sweeping economic package – is held up amid infighting within his Democratic Party in Congress.
Absent from the G20 will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, who plan to attend by video link.
Summit host, Italian PM Mario Draghi, has called for a “G20 commitment on the need to limit the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degrees” above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious target outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Complicating the task for the G20 will be disparities between top world powers on tackling global warming.
China, the world’s biggest polluter and responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon emissions, has been accused of sidestepping calls to stop building new coal-fired power plants.
The summit is being held away from the city centre after violent clashes erupted earlier this month between protesters and police over the extension of Italy’s coronavirus pass to all workplaces.
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