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ROME — G20 leaders committed to stronger action than ever before to limit global warming at a summit in Rome on Sunday, but failed to strike a deal on phasing out coal.
The signal from the leaders of the world’s top economies was being watched closely from the COP26 U.N. climate summit, which was beginning in Glasgow, Scotland at the same time as the deal was concluded.
“The decisions we make today will have a direct impact on the success of the Glasgow summit and, ultimately, on our ability to tackle the climate crisis,” Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the G20 host, told leaders.
Speaking from Glasgow, Alok Sharma, the U.K. minister who is president of COP26, said he was “cautiously hopeful about what I’m hearing from Rome … I know discussions haven’t been easy.” But he added: “Countries are clear-sighted on the urgency of the science.”
The G20 text, which POLITICO obtained, commits leaders “to take further action this decade and to formulate, implement, update and enhance, where necessary, our 2030″ contributions. They agreed that was the minimum required to keep the lower 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature goal of the Paris Agreement “within reach.”
That leaves space for a major fight over which countries need to raise their climate targets during this decade and by how much. Europe and the U.S. have put pressure on China and India throughout the buildup to COP26. But Beijing and New Delhi have responded by saying that the onus is on wealthy countries to do more.
During a discussion among the G20 leaders, some clearly felt the weight of history upon them. “The fall of the Roman Empire teaches us that when things start to go downhill, they do it very quickly,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In the agreement, the leaders said they acknowledged the “key relevance” of reaching net-zero global emissions “by or around mid-century.” That accelerates a deal that all countries made in Paris in 2015 to reach that goal in the second half of the 21st century.
According to the G20 official, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was attending her final meeting of the group of 20 leading economies, said the meeting was “of crucial importance, it takes place on the eve of COP26. We are sending a very clear message: We are even more ambitious than the Paris Agreement.”
The G20 is a diverse group of countries that account for around 80 percent of global emissions and have widely differing interests when it comes to climate policy.
While there were positive signals from a group that has typically struggled to find common ground on this issue, they did not commit to key goals on coal and methane reductions that would be necessary if the 1.5-degree target is to be met.
The leaders agreed to end international public financing of new coal power by the end of this year and spur a shift away from polluting fuels by boosting international finance for green projects.
But they failed to reach a deal on phasing out coal power or to stop building new coal plants.
According to a G20 official, the deal was finalized on Sunday morning after all-night talks among diplomats.
Big exporters and consumers of coal — such as China, Australia, India and Russia — resisted a push from European and British diplomats for the group to agree that they would stop using the most polluting fossil fuel.
The leaders recognized for the first time that methane emissions are a significant climate problem and tackling them is a cost-effective fix, but rejected a proposal to cut them during this decade.
Developing countries have been dismayed by a recent report that developed countries — many of which are in the G20 — have missed an agreed deadline to supply $100 billion per year in support for climate action to poorer nations by 2020. The G20 committed to meeting that goal “as soon as possible” and said it was expected “no later than 2023.”
In another key signal for developing countries ahead of COP26, the group recognized the need for more balance between funding for cutting emissions and financing efforts to cope with the impact of climate change. Right now, the bulk of funding goes to the former.
But Greenpeace International boss Jennifer Morgan said the leaders had “simply failed to meet the moment.”
“Now they move onto Glasgow where there is still a chance to seize a historic opportunity, but the likes of Australia and Saudi Arabia need to be marginalized, while rich countries need to finally grasp that the key to unlock COP26 is trust,” she said.
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