Womp Womp - The Great Dealmaker Can't Get Anyone To Go Along With His G20 Climate Tantrum
At the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, this week, Donald Trump failed in his effort to get several nations to back off their support of the Paris climate accord. If he had succeeded, this likely would have killed the final communiqué usually issued at the end of each G20 meeting. Three senior officials told Politico reporters that Trump had been pressuring Australia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Turkey to withdraw their support for the G20’s commitment to the 2015 accord. It didn’t work. In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron gave notice early on that he would veto the final communiqué if it weakened the G20’s support for the accord.
As it turned out, Trump’s arm-twisting lost, and the communiqué’s language declares similar support for the accord as it has in the past, with an “agree to disagree” carve-out for the United States in the document like those that have been included since 2017.
Two EU negotiators reportedly argued with U.S. negotiators until 4 a.m. Saturday without making a dent. That only came when the issue was put directly to the top leaders in Osaka, with 19 of them agreeing to stick to the old format. This was given a boost when China supported the EU’s firm stance in the matter.
EDIT
Just because 19 of the G20 leaders signed onto the communiqué doesn’t mean that their own nations’ policies are all that great. China and Japan are still putting government money into supporting the burning of more coal, for instance. Canada is still in love with extracting tar sands petroleum, not only adding to the burden of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but wrecking boreal forest and imperiling the health of indigenous peoples. Environmental activists have also noted that the Paris accord is flawed. That’s not because it does too much, as Trump would have it, but because it doesn’t do enough.
EDIT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/6/29/1868287/-Trump-fails-to-persuade-anyone-to-abandon-support-for-Paris-climate-accord-in-G20-s-final-communiqu
= new reply since forum marked as read
