G20 Environment, here is the agreement (crippled by China and India)
G20 Environment, Climate and Energy of Naples: conclusions and comments
Two key points have been deferred to the political decision of the Summit of Heads of State: the commitment to stay below 1.5 degrees of global warming by 2030 and the commitment to eliminate coal from energy production by 2025.
This is the result of the hours of negotiations that took place on the second day of the G20 Environment, Climate and Energy in Naples.
The American envoy, John Kerry, and the Italian minister Roberto Cingolani, aimed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees by 2030 and eliminate coal from energy production by 2025, but Beijing and New Delhi have opposed and the final agreement was postponed to the G20 of heads of state and government at the end of October in Rome. These are two key elements, writes Reuters , that could jeopardize the hope of obtaining a meaningful agreement.
The Minister of Ecological Transition, Cingolani, however, said he was satisfied with a "historic" agreement. It was a «particularly complex negotiation – he said – lasting after 2 nights and 2 days, with the teams working on the guidelines. Tonight there was not much optimism then instead we managed to find an agreement on the communiqué: 60 articles were proposed, 58 were shared ».
The main opposition had come from China and especially India, the only countries to contest the two points left open in the agreement signed yesterday. Now the question passes to the G20 of heads of state because it is "more political than technical", reiterated Cingolani.
“Convincing the greats to tackle these issues together was an absolute novelty. I consider it a success of the Italian presidency, as on the other hand we have been recognized by all the delegations ”. This was underlined by the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani, in an interview with La Repubblica , taking stock of the G20 on the Environment in Naples. “From my point of view we did it – says Cingolani -. The joint final document incorporates 58 of the initial 60 points. The two most controversial, namely the acceleration of the cut in CO2 emissions and the disposal of coal, affected the economic policies of large countries with very large populations. We knew it would be difficult to have a yes even on these two issues ”.
For Cingolani “there was an extraordinary participation on the part of everyone, a great generosity both on the part of those who were in Naples and those who were connected. It was a very tiring two days and two nights. Yesterday morning the negotiators were unable to make progress on five or six points. And then we ministers intervened ”. For the minister, however, there was no definitive rejection on the two controversial points. “Since we have not found an agreement as environment ministers, we have sent them back to the G20 heads of state – he says – objectively they are aspects that affect economic and social policies, the strategic choices of individual nations. It is right that they are analyzed at the highest levels ”. The minister believes "that there is room for agreement on these two points as well".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/g20-ambiente-ecco-laccordo-azzoppato-da-cina-e-india/ on Sat, 24 Jul 2021 08:31:34 +0000.