LONDON, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Of the world’s
20 leading economies, Italy, Brazil, France and Germany are
closest to meeting international targets to keep global warming
to less than 2 degrees Celsius, with Saudi Arabia and the United
States trailing at the bottom, according to an index released
ahead of this week’s G20 summit.
The G20 countries are responsible for 75 percent of
planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but are not yet on
track to cut those sufficiently to prevent temperatures reaching
dangerously high levels, the index compilers said on Thursday.
“It’s time for the world’s richest economies … to step up
their game on climate action,” said Wael Hmaidan, executive
director of the Climate Action Network (CAN), which published
the index with Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute.
“If we are to realise the goals of the Paris Agreement we
need countries to get down to the business of serious
implementation,” he said.
Under the Paris Agreement, individual countries have drawn
up targets to cut emissions to help reach the international goal
to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above
pre-industrial levels.
But some are making faster progress than others toward that
goal.
“Particularly promising are the developments in some of the
major emerging economies such as Brazil or India,” said Niklas
Höhne, a founding partner of the Berlin-based NewClimate
Institute and a professor at Wageningen University in the
Netherlands.
Brazil has achieved advances in reducing deforestation,
which now need to be maintained, and India is favouring
renewables over coal and electric vehicles over gasoline and
diesel, Höhne said.
“Both countries are moving in the right direction – yet
climate policies and international climate finance need further
support,” he said.
The index looks at countries’ 2030 targets for greenhouse
gas emissions, renewable energy and total energy use. It also
compares what countries have achieved with what needs to happen
to keep global warming in check.
“The results illustrate that even if all (G20) countries
were as involved as the current frontrunners, efforts would not
yet be sufficient to prevent dangerous climate change,”
Germanwatch noted.
Climate change is one of the main issues to be discussed at
the G20 summit in Hamburg, which starts on Friday.
Talks on achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement are
likely to be split, following President Donald Trump’s
announcement last month that the United States will withdraw
from the global pact.
G20 AND DIRTY FUEL
Environmental campaigners this week said G20 countries
provide nearly four times more public finance each year to
support fossil fuels than clean energy.
In a study published on Wednesday, they said fossil fuel
financing from G20 governments averaged $71.8 billion per year
between 2013 and 2015. Half of all G20 public finance for energy
supported oil and gas production alone, they said.
Their report looked at energy projects supported by G20
public finance institutions, including overseas development aid
agencies and export credit agencies, and multilateral
development banks.
“If other G20 governments are serious about standing up to
Trump’s climate denial and meeting their commitments under the
Paris Agreement, they need to stop propping up the outdated
fossil fuel industry with public money,” said Alex Doukas, a
campaigner with Oil Change International and one of the report’s
authors.
“The best climate science points to an urgent need to
transition to clean energy, but public finance from G20
governments drags us in the opposite direction. We must stop
funding fossils and shift these subsidies,” Doukas said.
The study was compiled by Oil Change International, Friends
of the Earth U.S., the Sierra Club and the WWF European Policy
Office.
(Reporting by Alex Whiting @Alexwhi, Editing by Laurie
Goering.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the
charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian
news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking
and property rights. Visit news.trust.org/climate)
