States in Stalemate

Hello and welcome to the Strawman, the daily climate newsletter that’s like a new flavour at Starbucks - sure you don’t know if it’s going to be great or not but at least you’ll be getting your coffee (or in this case, fire climate insights).

Today we’re checking in on the G20 summit in India. You guessed it, they haven’t agreed on much. Let’s get in to it.

We all know what’s up. We need to reduce emissions ASAP and that’s only going to happen if we see real climate leadership from the G20.

At the G20 summit in India this week, climate leaders were unable to reach a deal on fossil fuels. No surprises.

The thing is, every time these folks get together, it’s like a broken record. It’s like playing Monopoly with your family, it starts out all fun and games but it always ends in chaos.

As usual, the devil’s in the details. While some countries agreed to full-scale decarbonisation, those holding-out insisted that they shouldn’t need to capture emissions as they decarbonise.

Of course the G20 doesn’t name names but the usual suspects of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China have regularly kicked the can down the road. Talk about procrastination.

On the bright side, G7 nations have already agreed to accelerate phasing out fossil fuels but there’s only so much they can do alone. The reality is, with so much happening on the global stage, the climate crisis continues to fade in to the background.

With COP28 in the UAE fast approaching, all eyes are on the conference for climate leaders to make serious progress. No pressure.

‘Til next time.

The Strawman

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