Global Warming Will ‘Decimate’ G20 Economies Without Unity: UN climate Head

AFP/APP 

London: UN climate chief Simon Stiell warned G20 nations on Wednesday that their economies face decimation and they must overcome geopolitical divisions to tackle global warming.

Stiell said the climate crisis was slipping down a crowded global agenda at a time when consensus was needed on how to help developing nations pay for clean energy and respond to extreme weather.

The group of 20 developed and developing economies, including the United States, China, and India, faced many geopolitical challenges, but this “cannot be an excuse for timidity amidst this worsening crisis,”  Stiell said in a London speech.

“To be completely honest, blame-shifting is not a strategy. Sidelining climate isn’t a solution to a crisis that will decimate every G20 economy and has already started to hurt,” said the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The financial firepower the G20 marshaled during the global financial crisis should be marshaled again and pointed squarely at curbing runaway emissions and building resilience right now.”

Brazil had hoped a gathering of G20 finance ministers it hosted in February would spotlight climate change, but the meeting ended in discord over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Stiell’s rallying cry follows this week’s announcement by Europe’s climate monitor that March was the hottest on record and the tenth straight month of historic heat around the globe.