Business leaders, scientists, and civil society “urged the world’s leading economies to put global warming back on the G20 agenda,” Reuters reported Tuesday, after a commitment to climate finance disappeared from the communiqué from a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in Baden Baden, Germany.
“Climate change represents one of the largest risks to sustainable development, inclusiveness, equitable economic growth, and financial stability,” said the statement from a list of signatories that included BASF CEO Kurt Bock, chair of the B20, the G20’s outreach organization for business. “We need to be sure that (G20 leaders) fulfill existing international climate-related commitments, foremost the Paris Agreement.”
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The statement “came after G20 financial leaders—under pressure from the United States—dropped from their communiqué a reference about willingness to finance measures to combat climate change as agreed in Paris in 2015,” Reuters notes. “The business leaders and scientists welcomed Germany’s continued leadership on the issue as rotating president of the G20.”
The business groups, along with civil society groups (the C20) and think tanks (the T20), called for “fast and fundamental action to counter rising temperatures,” the news agency states.
