Climate change will “decimate G20 economies”, warns UN Climate chief

The G20, divided on geopolitical issues, cannot “relegate to the background” global warming which “will decimate” their economies, warned the head of the UN Climate on Wednesday April 10. “Shoulding responsibility is not a strategy” And “relegating the climate to the background is not a solution to a disruption which will decimate every G20 economy and which has already started to do damage“, declared Simon Stiell in London, pleading for a “new agreement” financing the fight against climate change in developing countries.

On March 1, the finance ministers of the G20 countries concluded their meeting in Sao Paulo without agreement on a joint communiqué due to a “dead end” linked to divisions over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

“Immediately”

However, the release of billions of dollars necessary for the energy transition and adaptation to extreme phenomena in developing economies is a central theme of international climate negotiations in 2024, with a view to COP29 in November in Baku and at the heart of the meetings of spring of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in mid-April.

“The financial firepower that the G20 mobilized during the global financial crisis should be re-mobilized and resolutely focused on reducing runaway emissions” and adaptation “immediately”added the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The leadership of the G20, which represents 80% of humanity’s emissions, “must be at the heart of the solution, as it was during the great financial crisis”, added Simon Stiell to this forum of rich countries and major emerging economies, including China, India and Brazil. Countries around the world must increase their greenhouse gas reduction targets, which are currently very insufficient to limit warming to 1.5°C as planned by the Paris Agreement, recalled the senior UN official.