Leaders from the world’s biggest economies have announced to put a pause to the funding of coal-fired plants in poor countries. The pledge was made at the recent Rome summit and is considered to be part of the commitment towards reaching carbon neutrality by the mid-century.
For the uninitiated, the conference in Rome had both positive and negative descriptions for different leaders of G-20. The Italian and French Prime Minister’s described the summit as a success while Britain’s leader, the chief of U.N and several climate activists were disappointed with the outcome.
As per sources, G-20 countries contribute to more than three-quarters of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists and environmentalists are now looking forward to the Glasgow COP26 meeting as their last hope for the world to put limitation on the global rise in temperature to 1.5 degree Celsius.
In the conference, Britain, the United States and Europe demanded commitment to bring down emission to net-zero, establishing a balance between the addition and removal of the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by 2050. China, Saudi Arabia and Russia pledged for 2060 but their leaders didn’t show up.
According to reports, the future of coal has been the primary issue of the G-20 summit as it is reportedly the main source of greenhouse gas emission. However, leaders arrived at a consensus to put an end to the financial support of coal plants by the end of 2021.
While the conference addressed to the issue of coal, John Kirton, Director of G-20 Research Group at the University of Toronto, stated that the outcome of the summit did not report anything new as the leaders only took baby steps to address the problem of climate change.
Credible reports state that leaders in the summit also signed a landmark agreement to impose a global minimum corporate tax of 15% apart from addressing the climate issues.
Source credit:- https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/world/g-20-make-mild-pledges-on-climate-neutrality-coal-financing/article37278200.ece