Climate: in Rome, the G20 seeks convergence in view of COP 26 – La Tribune

Before Glasgow, Rome. Expected from Sunday in Scotland for the 26th climate change conference, the heads of state and government of the twenty richest countries in the world will go before that on Friday in the Italian capital for their first face-to-face meeting since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, two years ago. COP 26 requires, the climate will therefore be one of the main points of the dense agenda of this G20.

The ability of the 20 countries meeting in Rome, responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gases, to increase their commitments is indeed essential in order to limit global warming. However, many of them, such as China, India or Australia, do not even have yet updated their “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs), while the Paris Agreement required them to do so before COP 26.

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The level of ambition on the agenda

Several subjects on the agenda of COP 26 will thus be discussed beforehand in Rome, in order to try to find a convergence, assure sources close to the Elysee. First, various thorny questions relating to the level of global ambition in the fight against climate change. Should the limit of temperature increase accepted before the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times be kept at 2 ° C, as required by the Paris Agreement, or should it be brought to 1.5 ° C, as the same text recommends ? What should be the deadlines that States set for themselves to achieve carbon neutrality: 2060? As China has just promised, or 2050, as France has committed? How to push the lagging countries to present their NDCs, but also to ensure a transparent follow-up of the various commitments?

Then, what tools to rely on in these trajectories? What place should be reserved in particular for taxation or carbon markets, innovation, the end of fossil fuel subsidies? In a context of rising global gas prices, the abandonment of coal as an energy source will be particularly discussed at the G20, anticipates the Elysee, which hopes for commitments from China. On Tuesday, during an interview with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron encouraged him to move forward. “concretely” on this way. South Africa should also make a commitment in this direction in Glasgow: a success due in large part to lobbying from France, says the French executive.

A “high risk” of failure

If the climate will therefore be one of the “markers” of the Rome summit, the risk that the desired convergence will not be found is However “raised”, admit the sources of the Elysee, highlighting in particular the difficulty for several countries to combine climate crisis and post-Covid crisis. A failure of the G20 on the subject of the climate would not, however, automatically imply that of the COP 26, believes the entourage of Emmanuel Macron.

During a press conference on Monday, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, Laurence Tubiana, had indeed reminded herself: the G20 which was held just before the COP 21 in 2015 in Antalya in Turkey had been “the most disastrous” in terms of climate. This had not prevented the international community from reaching a historic consensus a few weeks later.

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