G20 'Carbon Neutrality' Timeline Fails... COP26 Also Under Threat

COP26 Opening... Host Country UK Prime Minister Johnson "Only 12 Countries Promise 2050 Achievement"
Final Statement Uses Vague Phrase 'Mid-Century'... Falls Short of Expectations
No Agreement on Ending Coal Power... President Biden "Disappointed with Russia and China"

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pointed out that the achievements of the G20 summit are only a drop in the ocean.
Photo by AP Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] "The commitments made by the Group of Twenty (G20) on climate change measures are just a drop in the ocean."

Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and chair of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), did not hide his disappointment at the G20 summit held just before COP26. The G20 leaders were expected to present clear goals on climate change response, which would serve as a basis for approximately 200 countries participating in COP26 to establish concrete implementation plans, but this did not happen.

Failure to Agree on Ending Coal Power and Methane Pledge

The G20 summit was held on October 30-31 (local time) in Rome, Italy. COP26 opened on October 31, the closing day of the G20 summit, and is scheduled to be held in Glasgow, Scotland until November 12.

According to Bloomberg, after the G20 summit, Prime Minister Johnson said at a press conference, "Only 12 of the G20 countries have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 or earlier," adding, "If urgent measures are not taken, COP26 is at great risk of failure."

The initial draft of the G20 summit communiqu? included a specific goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. However, the final communiqu? replaced this with the vague expression "mid-century." Compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set the target for the latter half of this century, this is a step forward, but it fell short of initial expectations.

Among the G20, China and Russia set the carbon neutrality target 10 years later, in 2060. India did not specify any concrete timeline for achieving carbon neutrality. Among the top four global greenhouse gas emitters, only the United States set a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The G20, composed of 19 countries and the EU, accounts for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Johnson pointed out, "The G20 has always been the group of countries most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but they are not playing their rightful role in reducing carbon emissions," emphasizing, "Change is necessary to prevent the failure of COP26."

U.S. President Joe Biden expressed disappointment that China and Russia did not attend the G20 summit.
Photo by AP Yonhap News

Bloomberg diagnosed that COP26 opened under dark clouds as the G20 avoided answering difficult questions. The BBC also pointed out that the G20 summit's agreements lacked specificity.

The G20 leaders promised to stop financial support for coal power but failed to agree on when to completely phase out coal power. They also did not reach an agreement on the "Global Methane Pledge," which aims to reduce methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

United Nations Secretary-General Ant?nio Guterres tweeted after the G20 summit, "Leaving Rome with hopes unfulfilled, but those hopes are not buried entirely."

Biden Specifically Calls Out Russia and China: "Disappointing"

The failure to agree on achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 has raised concerns that the 2015 Paris Agreement goals will be difficult to meet. The Paris Agreement aims to limit the global average temperature increase to within 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to strive to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, a country at risk of submersion due to global warming, welcomed the G20 summit agreement but stated, "It is not enough to limit the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees."

Feeling the pressure of international scrutiny, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have already announced their intention to skip COP26 and participated in the G20 summit only via video conference.

U.S. President Joe Biden directly criticized, saying, "I was disappointed that Russia and China did not show up at the meeting." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who visited Rome on behalf of President Putin, expressed dissatisfaction, saying, "The G7 forced all other countries to set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050," and added, "It is unfair to impose the G7's approach during international agreement processes."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.