March 29, 2024

Ministerial meeting in Naples: the opposing G20 countries on climate protection

Ministerial meeting in Naples: the opposing G20 countries on climate protection

DrThe G20 environment and energy ministers were unable to agree on more ambitious goals to combat climate change at their two-day meeting in Naples. Italian Environment Minister Roberto Cingolani, the meeting’s host, acknowledged Friday evening at the conclusion of the G20 meeting of major industrialized and emerging nations that there was no consensus on two crucial points in the comprehensive 60-paragraph final declaration. Italy is chairing the G20 this year and has been holding meetings of relevant ministers in different cities in the country for months in preparation for the G20 Summit on October 30-31 in Rome.

Matthias Rub

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta, based in Rome.

According to Cingolani, countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia did not want to commit to achieving the goal of limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees by 2030, which is being pursued by the European Union, the United States, Canada and Japan. . Instead, there was only a general declaration of intent by the G-20 countries on the Paris climate agreement, which sets the goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees. Even a commitment to an early phase-out of coal power generation, which the United States and Europeans have urged, cannot be included in the final document due to opposition from major coal producers such as Australia and major coal importers such as China.

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In addition, the agreement on the topic of nature conservation failed. Cingulani said only a few countries, by no means all, have spoken out in favor of putting 30 percent of land and marine areas under protection by the end of this decade. The head of the United Nations Climate Secretariat in Bonn, Patricia Espinosa, has warned the G20 countries that they are responsible for 80 percent of global economic output and 85 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, the countries of the group of nations must work together towards the goal of reducing the phenomenon of climate change. Global warming specified in. Espinosa invited the G20 to show more determination at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow in November.

Germany was represented in Naples by the Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Environment, Jochen Flasbarth (SPD). Flassbarth said a lot of persuasion still needed to be done in emerging countries in terms of protecting the environment, climate and nature. Views in countries such as China, India or Russia on the use of fossil fuels differed greatly from those in the European Union and the United States. So far, emerging countries have seen their role primarily in calling on industrialized nations to do more to protect the climate. But now the G20 countries have emerged for the first time as a “community of responsibility” and “crafted the mission to fight climate change together”, Flasbarth reached a positive conclusion from the Naples meeting, regardless of the “weak” final document. In addition, everyone has committed to reviewing their national climate targets by the time the World Climate Conference takes place in Glasgow.

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