G20 Leaders Torpedo COP26

By Paul Homewood

 

It’s behind a paywall, but The Australian is already reporting that G20 leaders have effectively torpedoed COP26 below the water line:

 

 

The rejection of British, French and US backed resolutions at the Rome summit signalled a shattering of consensus ahead of the UN climate change conference beginning in Glasgow on Monday.

More than 20,000 people have assembled in the Scottish city for the COP26 summit, where Mr Johnson had hoped to usher in a new era of global co-operation on emissions reduction and climate change.
The final G20 communique released late Sunday revealed a softening in language around net-zero emissions by 2050 targets, with carbon neutrality goals watered down after negotiations to say “by or around mid-century”.

Despite calls to end coal-fired power generation by 2030, the G20 leaders could only agree that countries who “commit to phasing out investment in new unabated coal power generation capacity do so as soon as possible”. A vague reference was included about ending international public finance for new coal generation abroad by the end of the year.

 

 G20 countries including India, Australia, Russia, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and South Africa were understood to have reservations about some of the climate agenda being pushed by US, Britain and the European Union

Vague promises about carbon neutrality by mid century are worthless, without step-by-step pledges of how this is to be achieved.

But the failure to stop new coal power build even in the 2030s surely condemns COP26 to failure.

There should not be any surprise about any of this, because it has been on the cards all along.

No doubt, some form of words will be agreed on at the end of the conference, and proclaimed as a breakthrough, as is usually the case. In reality however Glasgow will achieve little of substance, and the can will be kicked down the road for a few more years.