• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says July 4, 2022
‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation July 4, 2022
Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History July 4, 2022
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Jurisdictions Canada

All Eyes on Trump and Merkel as G20 Leaders Gather in Hamburg

July 4, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes

The White House/Wikimedia Commons

The White House/Wikimedia Commons

 

Climate action and geopolitical manoeuvring are likely to dominate the conversation among G20 leaders meeting in Hamburg, Germany July 7-8. The big question: how far will Donald Trump’s presence disrupt the priorities of other leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will chair the summit, “has made it clear that she intends to focus on furthering the goals of the Paris climate accord, while Mr. Trump has set in motion the United States’ withdrawal from the treaty,” the Globe and Mail observes.

Germany wants to see other leaders “commit to a coordinated effort to speed up the transition to a low-carbon energy system, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in average global temperatures,” an initiative Trump is expected to oppose.

The summit will command global attention, the Globe asserts, as business and political leaders watch for any sign of backsliding on Paris commitments among other G20 members. “It is an important moment,” commented Erin Flanagan, federal policy director for the Pembina Institute. “It does very much matter what the ‘G19’ says on Paris, because we are still looking for clarity from the major economies in response to Trump’s decision” to have the United States withdraw from the accord.

Andrew Light, a fellow at the World Resources Institute in Washington, agreed: “It matters, because one of the biggest emitters in the world, and one of the parties that was pushing hardest and longest to achieve the Paris accord, has announced its intention to withdraw. So in the face of that, you absolutely need a statement of solidarity—a ‘G19’, or as close as you can get to a G19, commitment on climate change.”

According to the Globe, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has thrown his weight firmly behind that goal. “Over the past several weeks, Mr. Trudeau has spoken to several G20 leaders—including Ms. Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” the outlet reports. “After each call, the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa released a ‘readout,’ in every case reporting that Mr. Trudeau and the other leader had reaffirmed their commitment to the international effort to fight climate change.”

For her part Merkel, speaking in a weekly podcast, urged the G20 leaders to focus on inclusive and sustainable common growth rather than their own prosperity—a clear shot at Trump’s America First mantra. “If we simply try to carry on as we have in the past, the worldwide developments will definitely not be sustainable and inclusive,” she said. “We need the climate protection agreement, open markets, and improved trade agreements in which consumer protection, social, and environmental standards are upheld.”

Nonetheless, there were fears in the climate action community that the Trump administration had already intervened to water down a German draft of a summit communiqué, redefining “clean technologies” to include natural gas and even some coal generation, and removing references to a 2025 deadline for eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.

Another initiative the Americans may now resist would create “a clear and comparable framework for assessing and disclosing the risk that climate change poses to businesses and investments.” That measure, specifically requested by an earlier G20 summit, has been in the charge of Bank of England (and former Bank of Canada) Governor Mark Carney. Its endorsement in Hamburg “would send a strong signal to the private sector—and to capital market regulators—that climate risk should be taken seriously,” Céline Bak, a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, ON, told the Globe.

In the lead-up to the G20 a report sponsored by the World Bank and a dozen environmental and research organizations stressed that “G20 countries account for 85% of global GDP and 80% of worldwide CO2 emissions.”

But while those nations “have made big efforts to reduce their impact on climate,” the Brown to Green report noted, “present efforts are neither sufficient in speed—nor in depth—to keep global warming to the limit set in the Paris Agreement [of] holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C.”

As the G20 leaders travelled to Hamburg, however, their divergent priorities were already obvious. Reuters reports that Trump planned a pre-summit visit to Warsaw, where he intended to offer American liquid natural gas shipments to eastern European nations to help reduce their politically-charged reliance on gas imported from Russia.

The same news agency reported elsewhere on “an awkward embrace” between Germany’s Merkel and China’s President Xi Jinping, as the two met before the main summit. Both leaders, and their nations, have shown ambitions to fill the vacuum in global leadership—on trade as well as on climate—left by the United States’ retreat into isolationism under Trump.



in Canada, Climate Action / "Blockadia", Climate Denial & Greenwashing, Community Climate Finance, COP Conferences, Energy Politics, Oil & Gas, UK & Europe, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Wikimedia Commons
Oil & Gas

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
43
angela n./flickr
United States

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
40
EdmondMeinfelder/flickr
Environmental Justice

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
17

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

opinion polling gender green recovery climate action

Conservative Women Far More Likely Than Men to Support Green Transition, EcoAnalytics Research Finds

July 4, 2022
46
U.S. Navy/picryl

Montreal to Host New NATO Climate Centre as Military Analyst Confronts Global ‘Hyperthreat’

July 4, 2022
45
Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING: No Public Finance for East Coast LNG Projects, Wilkinson Says

July 4, 2022
43
angela n./flickr

‘Climate Math Gets Harder’ as Radicalized Supreme Court Upends U.S. Carbon Regulation

July 4, 2022
40
Maurits90/Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco Commuter Train Derailed by Scorching Track Temperatures, Extreme Heat

July 4, 2022
30
Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

July 3, 2022
457

Recent Posts

EdmondMeinfelder/flickr

Dire Living Conditions, Climate-Driven Heat Wave Produce Deadliest Human Smuggling Event in U.S. History

July 4, 2022
17
Adrian Grycuk/Wikimedia Commons

Youth Climate Case Moves to Top Tribunal in European Court

July 4, 2022
20
Seci/wikimedia commons

Saudi Aramco Talks Net-Zero, Plans to Boost Production Through 2035

July 4, 2022
11
Keith Weller/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Methane Plan Gives Big Ag a Free Pass

July 4, 2022
13
Fadi Hage/wikimedia commons

Indoor Farming Revolution Comes with Significant Carbon Cost

July 4, 2022
16
Mont SUTTON snow terrain

Southern Quebec Towns Scramble for Solutions as Water Sources Dwindle

July 4, 2022
21
Next Post
agnosticpreacherskid/Wikimedia Commons

U.S. Court Checks EPA Rush to Scrap Obama-Era Methane Rule

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}