At the G20, Lula calls for continued efforts on climate, in the shadow of Ukraine

Lula called on Tuesday not to relax increase pressure to bring climate negotiations to a successful conclusion Baku, referring to a “fight for survival”, on the second day of a G20 summit that failed to provide any impetus eacute;cisive on the subject.

As the day before, the debates of the leaders of the major world economies were also caught up in the geopolitical situation on the 1,000th day of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, who did not attend the summit, denounced their inaction in the face of Russia's nuclear discourse.

“We cannot postpone Baku's task to Belem (where Brazil will host the next COP30 climate conference in the Amazon rainforest in 2025),” warned Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is chairing the G20 this year, at the opening of the last plenary session.

“History is watching us,” also declared US President Joe Biden, who is leaving office in January, referring to “the greatest existential threat to humanity.”

The G20 (19 countries, plus the European Union and the African Union) accounts for 85% of global GDP and 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate expectations were therefore high in Rio, before climate skeptic Donald Trump returned to the White House and as the UN climate conference, COP29, entered its final stretch in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (l) prepares to receive G20 leaders in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 18, 2024 © AFP – Ludovic MARIN

The joint statement adopted Monday evening by the G20 mentions “the need to increase climate finance” and bring it to “trillions of dollars, from all sources”, emphasizing the needs of poor countries.

But for some NGOs, the forum did not go far enough on the question of who should pay. And it even backtracked on the issue of phasing out fossil fuels, by not explicitly repeating the wording that had been snatched from the previous climate conference in Dubai, and taken up in October in a G20 declaration at ministerial level.

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– “Negationism” –

Lula called on everyone to mobilize on Tuesday.

“Even if no more trees are uprooted, the Amazon will remain threatened if the rest of the world does not fulfill its mission to contain global warming,” he warned. He notably suggested that “developed G20 countries bring forward their carbon neutrality targets to “2040 or 2045” instead of 2050.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during the G20 in Rio de Janeiro, November 19, 2024 © AFP – Ludovic MARIN

“In the fight for survival, there is no room for denial and disinformation,” he also insisted.

The message takes on particular resonance before the return of Donald Trump, who promised during his campaign to “drill at all costs”, questioned the reality of climate change, and said he wanted to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement again, as he did during his first term.

The United States is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.

Despite Lula's efforts to talk about the “poor” rather than the wars, the latter have invited themselves to the Rio summit, starting with Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov promised from Rio, where he represented Russia in the absence of President Vladimir Putin, an “appropriate” response to the Ukrainian launches of American ATACMS missiles against Russia. He denounced the involvement of the United States in these strikes, evoking a “new phase” in the conflict.

Washington has just authorized kyiv to use its long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia. The latter affirmed on Tuesday that such an attack had taken place during the night, and Vladimir Putin signed the decree expanding his possibilities of using nuclear weapons.

Since Rio, Americans and British have denounced “irresponsible rhetoric” from Moscow.

As at the previous summit last year in New Delhi, the joint declaration of the G20 did not explicitly mention Russian “aggression”.

Concluded when Lula handed over to his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country will chair the forum from December for a year, the Rio meeting once again starkly showed international divisions.

As a symbol, a soon-to-depart Joe Biden had missed a group photo on Monday. In a new photo on Tuesday, other leaders were absent, including Sergei Lavrov.

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