Even the hottest days of the year cannot bring people on one platform to deal with the climatic changes including global warming.
The raging fires in the United States and flash floods in Europe seem to have been taken as just occurrences.
A key to containing global warming is the commitment of the Group of 20 industrialized countries.
The United Nations sees no pathway to reach Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius goal without them.
“The world urgently needs a clear and unambiguous commitment to the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement from all G-20 nations”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
The Group failed to agree on the wording of key climate change commitments during their recent Ministerial Meeting on Environment, Climate and Energy.
“There is no pathway to this goal without the leadership of the G20. This signal is desperately needed by the billions of people already on the frontlines of the climate crisis and by markets, investors, and industry who require certainty that a net zero climate resilient future is inevitable”, the Secretary-General urged in a statement.
The pandemic has further escalated fears of climate change repercussions in the pandemic era when developing and the least developed nations have lost billions in economic activity to coronavirus outbreaks.
The UN chief reminded that science indicates that to meet that ‘ambitious, yet achievable goal’, the world must achieve carbon neutrality before 2050 and cut dangerous greenhouse gas emissions by 45 % by 2030 from 2010 levels. “But we are way off track”, he warned.
With less than 100 days left before the 2021 United Nations Climate Conference COP 26, a pivotal meeting that will be held in Glasgow at the end of October, António Guterres urged all G20 and other leaders to commit to net-zero by mid-century, present more ambitious 2030 national climate plans and deliver on concrete policies and actions aligned with a net-zero future.
These include no new coal after 2021, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and agreeing to a minimum international carbon pricing floor as proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The G7 and other developed countries must also deliver on a credible solidarity package of support for developing countries including meeting the US$100 billion goals, increasing adaptation and resilience support to at least 50% of total climate finance and getting public and multilateral development banks to significantly align their climate portfolios to meet the needs of developing countries”, he highlighted.
The G20 ministers, which met in Naples, Italy on July 23-25, couldn’t agree to a common language on two disputed issues related to phasing out coal and the 1.5-degree goal, which now will have to be discussed at the G20 summit in Rome in October, just one day before the COP 26 starts. But the question is what happens tomorrow when frequent disasters consume much of human energy and time.
