Climate change threatens to “decimate G20 economies”, says UN chief

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

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

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“The financial firepower that the G20 mobilized during the global financial crisis (in 2008, editor's note) should be mobilized again and resolutely directed towards reducing galloping 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. 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. Simon Stiell also underlined the “absolutely crucial role” of the G7 countries, “as main shareholders of the World Bank and the IMF”.

If all countries in the world must review their emissions reduction plans by COP30 in 2025, releasing financial aid is a “prerequisite” for efforts in this area by developing countries, “without which all economies , including those of the G7, will soon be prey to serious and permanent difficulties,” underlined the head of the UN Climate. His warning comes at a time when inflation and the constraints of ecological transition threaten, two months before the European elections, to call into question the climate ambitions of rich countries and, by extension, international financial solidarity.