G20 should lead way on energy transition plans at COP28: President-designate al-Jaber

G20 powers must send stronger signals of their will to transform world energy systems and should lead the way on plans for mitigating global warming at the COP28 summit, the event’s incoming president and the UN climate chief said on Thursday.

Representatives of the world’s leading 20 economies meeting in Chennai, India failed on Saturday to reach a consensus on phasing down fossil fuels, following objections by some producer nations.

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“We must leave Chennai on the right path and with a clear signal that the political will to tackle the climate crisis is there,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a joint statement with incoming COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber.

At COP28 – due to take place in Dubai in December – the G20 should lay “the path to a strong and credible outcome that provides developing countries with the basis to undertake a just transition,” they said.

They said they aim to define a global goal on adaptation, a key part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and set in operation the loss and damage fund – agreed at last year’s COP27 in Egypt – at COP28.

Mitigation is action taken to limit climate change by cutting or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, or removing them from the atmosphere, while adaptation is adjusting to reduce the harm done by climate change.

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