G20 leaders turn focus to climate change on last day of summit in Rio

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday urged leaders of the Group of 20 major economies to accelerate their national climate targets, calling on them to reach net zero climate emissions five to 10 years ahead of schedule.
Opening the last session of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Lula suggested countries bring forward their targets to reach climate neutrality by 2040 or 2045, instead of 2050 as Brazil and many others have pledged.
“We have to do more and better,” Lula said, noting that this is likely the world’s warmest year on record as climate disasters such as flooding and droughts become more frequent and intense. “There is no time to lose,” he added.
World leaders are trying to shore up a global response to climate change before
Donald Trump retakes the U.S. presidency in January, when he plans to roll back U.S. policy on global warming and reportedly exit the landmark Paris Agreement.
G20 nations are seen as vital to shaping the response to global warming, as they account for 85% of the world economy and more than three-quarters of climate-warming emissions.
The G20 leaders called in a joint statement on Monday for “rapidly and substantially increasing climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources” to confront global warming.
They also urged COP29 negotiators to reach a deal on a new financial goal for how much money rich nations must provide to poorer developing nations in climate finance, the main sticking point in the climate talks.
At the G20 summit on Tuesday, when leaders turned their discussion to the environment, Lula urged developing countries to broaden their climate targets to address all emissions that cause global warming, not just from certain sectors or gases.
U.S. President Joe Biden told the gathering that developing countries need to have “enough firepower and access to capital,” to slow climate change and protect their countries from its effects. That money needs to flow into their economies and give breathing room to debt-laden countries.
“History is watching us,” Biden said. “I urge us to keep the faith and keep going. This is the single greatest existential threat to humanity.”
Lula criticized developed countries for falling short of a promise to deliver $100 billion of climate financing annually to developing countries by 2020.
Lula noted that negotiators at the United Nations COP29 climate summit under way in Baku, Azerbaijan, are pushing for a new global goal of how much wealthier countries should provide to developing nations. Economists suggest the goal should be at least $1 trillion annually.
Those talks, set to conclude on Friday, have bogged down as developed countries call for more countries to contribute toward the goal, while the developing world argues that the rich nations most responsible for climate change need to pay up.
The G20 leaders’ statement on Monday said nations must break the impasse on finance, but they did not give clear guidance on a solution.
“G20 leaders have sent a clear message to their negotiators at COP29: do not leave Baku without a successful new finance goal. This is in every country’s clear interests,” U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said in a statement responding to the G20 communique.
Still, some activists complained the G20 statement did not go far enough on climate finance.
“This vagueness of the G20 declaration risks undermining trust in the negotiations, as the G20′s influence is crucial for bridging the divides between developed and developing nations,” said long-time activist Oscar Soria, head of The Common Initiative, an environmental think tank.
Climate negotiators aim to produce a full draft of a deal for the financial goal by Wednesday evening, said the summit’s lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev of Azerbaijan.
“We have stepped up the pace,” Rafiyev said. “The outcome will only be as good as parties’ commitment to help us build solutions.”
The G20 also committed to agreeing on a legally binding treaty to limit plastic pollution by the end of 2024, with talks resuming next week to hammer out a deal two years in the making.