Climate crisis: Shortly before Glasgow, the G20 owe many answers – opinion

Nobody should say that the 20 most important industrial and emerging countries are not up to date! “We see that the consequences of climate change at 1.5 degrees Celsius are much lower than at two degrees,” it says literally in the final declaration of their meeting in Rome. They are right! But what does that mean? It will be poor there.

A G20 summit has never been as strategically important as this one. The talks in Rome were still ongoing, the one in Glasgow just opened. The Italian capital could have given impulses for the two-week climate summit in Scotland, they could have given developing countries in particular certainty: The Club of 20, in which all current and historical causes of climate change are gathered, this club means business. The meeting in Rome could have boosted the most important resource in international negotiations in abundance: trust.

But he failed to do that.

Distant goals are easy to promise

The fact that the G20 are now collectively agreeing to operate in a carbon-neutral manner around the middle of the century does not change that. So not to blow more CO2 into the atmosphere than can be withdrawn from the atmosphere at the same time. That is only what most G-20 members have already promised. And measured by their 1.5-degree knowledge, anything else would be pure mockery.

But distant goals are easy to promise. What matters is what happens in the near and medium future. But this is exactly where the G20 remains vague. Some of its members, such as Australia, have already indicated that they want to continue digging coal as long as there is someone who will then burn it.

Climate protection, yes, but no restrictions at home – no world can be made with such countries. China presents a new climate plan, but in it is committed to well-known goals; and India owes such a plan at once. Delhi sees the responsibility with the others: Let them deliver well first.

Even so, the meeting in Rome was not pointless

Measured against such candidates, Italy has already achieved a lot with its G20 presidency. The end of international coal financing, for example, from the end of this year. Mention of a price on carbon dioxide as an effective means. Or just naming the 1.5 degree target as a really sensible thing. It wasn’t that long ago that the G20 donated climate protection at best two paragraphs far back. This time there are nine of them. But: prose alone will not save the climate.

The 20 stand for four fifths of all emissions. But anyone who hoped their collective knowledge would give wings to the summit in Glasgow will be disappointed after this weekend. It is just a good thing that their formulations have remained so vague: That does not make progress at the climate summit any easier – but it also does not make it completely impossible. Fortunately, the climate offenders’ club in Glasgow is no longer alone. But with all those who will soon be literally up to their necks in water.