Indonesia, which chairs the G20 this year, called on representatives of the world’s largest economies on Wednesday, asking them to act together against global warming which risks tipping the planet “into unknown territory”.
Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forests Siti Nurbaya Bakar underlined that “global environmental problems require global solutions”, without which the planet risks seeing its future in jeopardy, at the opening of a dedicated G20 ministerial meeting. environment and climate in Bali.
This appeal comes at the end of August marked by exceptional floods in Pakistan attributed to global warming with more than a thousand victims and by a heat wave in China which caused a devastating drought.
“We cannot escape the fact that the world is facing worsening challenges,” the minister added, citing rising energy prices and a global food shortage as examples.
“We know that climate change can become an amplifying and multiplying factor in crises. We cannot solve these crises on our own.”
Climate change could not only “erase all the progress in terms of development that has been achieved in recent decades, especially in emerging countries, but also tip us into unknown territory where the future will be compromised”.
Industrialized and developing countries are increasingly hit by record heat waves, floods and droughts, all of which could multiply and intensify due to climate change, scientists say.
John Kerry, US Special Envoy on Climate Change, COP26 President and UK Environment Minister Alok Sharma, as well as representatives from India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Italy, France and the European Union have moved.
The ministers plan to issue a joint communiqué following their discussions.
China, the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter, sent only a deputy ecology minister to the meeting, according to a list seen by AFP.
The meeting is a prelude to the November G20 summit which Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend, his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo said.
Britain has blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for exacerbating global energy problems.
The energy crisis triggered by the war has underlined “the vulnerability of countries dependent on fossil fuels controlled by hostile actors”, noted Alok Sharma.
The next annual UN climate conference, COP27, will be held in November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.