The leaders of the G20meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Monday November 18, failed to achieve any major breakthrough to break the deadlock in negotiations at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, which is supposed to decide who should finance adaptation to climate change. They also failed to include in their communiqué a commitment to “make a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”.which was secured at last year’s COP in Dubai.

While the COP29 climate conference in Baku failed in over a week to produce an agreement between rich and emerging countries on who should finance adaptation to climate change, high expectations were placed on the G20 leaders. On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged them to to assume their “leadership and to make “compromise” to break the deadlock in negotiations. However, no white smoke came out of the Museum of Modern Art, on the shores of Rio’s sublime bay, where the summit was being held.

“Not up to the challenge”.

“The leaders are passing the buck to Baku, but the problem is that the people making the decisions are actually in Rio.”Mick Sheldrick, co-founder of the NGO Global Citizen, told AFP. “They didn’t rise to the occasion”.he added, regretting that there was no “even a reference to what was achieved at COP28”. last year in Dubai.

The G20 leaders did not include in their declaration a commitment to “make a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”.which was reached in Dubai. The G20 members (19 countries, plus the European Union and the African Union) account for 85% of global GDP and 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.