The G20 Leaders’ summit in Rome over the weekend may well have been mistaken for the set of a well-known spaghetti western with their climate rendition of the good, the bad and the ugly.
The Good
If the recovery from COVID-19 has taught us one thing, it’s that existential threats have no quick fix. So too is the case with climate change, which is why it was good to see in paragraph [24] of the communiqué a commitment to allocate “an ambitious share of the financial resources to mitigating and adapting to climate change and avoid harm to the climate and environment”. Reference was also made to the International Energy Agency’s Sustainable Recovery Tracker. Assessments like this contextualise the unique opportunities and challenges inherent in a given country’s transition to net-zero. In doing so they highlight the dividends investing in clean energy pays, as well as shine a light on the often dim picture of states still recalcitrant to take meaningful change. Recognition of the long-term climate impact of decisions made today was a demonstration of ‘good’ by the G20 Leaders.
The Bad
If we have learnt anything over the past century and a half of fossil fuel exploration, development and consumption – it’s that humankind would have been far better to have left them in the ground. Coal is a particularly good example of why – it has high greenhouse gas emissions and an equally high cost to the health of humans that are subject to its particulates. For this reason, it was disappointing to see in paragraph [28] that G20 States could still not agree unanimously on the importance of “phasing out new unabated coal power generation” domestically. There is an overwhelming need for the G20 to take domestic leadership in phasing out private as well as public investment in new coal builds, with the former representing a much higher percentage of financing for new coal builds in both the G20 and beyond. Let’s make no mistake – both need to be stopped immediately. The fact that G20 Leaders can’t recognise fossil fuels for what they are, a relic of the past, is their demonstration of ‘bad’.
The Ugly
There was also a strange twist in paragraph [23] where after recognising the importance of the IPCC’s assessments, G20 Leaders’ committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality “by or around mid-century”. Anyone that has relied on a friend that has advised they will be somewhere ‘around’ a certain time knows one thing – that same friend will undoubtedly be late. This could be up to 20 years too late as we saw with India’s most recent announcement. However, the consequences for the G20 being ‘late’ in reaching net-zero are far more dire than being late to a friendly rendezvous. Indeed it would result in ugliness in two respects – an untidy legal and economic framework for the net-zero transition, and the loss of life and livelihoods associated with having no prospect of keeping 1.5°C alive.
So what does this mean for COP26? Just like a spaghetti western, negotiators only have one shot to get it right. This means building the framework for longstanding economy-wide decarbonisation, acknowledging the end of the fossil fuel power generation and ensuring that constructive ambiguity is not used to mask a failure in both diplomacy and leadership amongst the self-described global economic steering committee.