The US and China joined the Paris climate deal
The G-20 economies account for around 85pc of the gross world product (GWP), 80pc of world trade (or, if excluding EU intra-trade, 75pc), and two-thirds of the world population.
Leaders of the world’s biggest powers met on Sunday, 4 September 2016 to try to revive the sluggish world economy, with their host Chinese President Xi Jinping urging them to avoid “empty talk”.
Xi welcomed each president and prime minister to the Group of 20 summit with a handshake and had an extended clasp with Barack Obama, with both men smiling despite protocol stumbles around the US leader’s visit.
In a circular conference hall in Hangzhou, the scenic eastern city left deserted by a vast security operation, Xi told them the G20 “should work with the real action, with no empty talk”.
China stated that a successful meeting will portray it as an assured and powerful nation ready to assume a role on the international stage that befits its status as the world’s second-largest economy.
What is G-20?
The G-20 economies account for around 85pc of the gross world product (GWP), 80pc of world trade (or, if excluding EU intra-trade, 75pc), and two-thirds of the world population.
The members include 19 individual countries, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi-Arabia, South-Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States along with the European Union. The EU is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank, collectively.
Pakistan, unfortunately, doesn’t stand in the row, which is very disgraceful for our country and moment of precise thinking for our government and may be leaders.
The conference was the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history. Hosting the G-20 offers a significant opportunity for China to become a rule maker rather than a rule taker, the G-20 may not be a platform of bonding force, but at least it ensures that China has equal say along with the developed countries.
Xi said the global economy still faces multiple risks and challenges including a lack of growth momentum and consumption, turbulent financial markets, receding global trade and investment. He, thinking positively, pointed out his hope that the Hangzhou summit will come up with a prescription for the world economy and lead it back to the road of strong, balanced, comprehensive and sustainable growth.
The conference, in this striking lakeside city south of Shanghai, was the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history, and President Xi Jinping had ordered stringent security to ensure it goes off without a hitch.
The summit was preceded by a flurry of diplomatic activity on issues ranging from climate change and the war in Syria to international trade.
The US and China ratified the Paris climate accord, a crucial step towards bringing into force the pact against global warming. UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who personally received the ratification documents from Xi and Obama, applauded them for “making this historic step” and urged other G-20 leaders to follow suit.
There had been hopes for another breakthrough, on the long war in Syria after the US said it was close to a deal with Russia on stemming the violence. But negotiations between Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterpart Sergei Lavrov yielded only an agreement to convene again later, with Russia accused of “walking back” on key issues.
Moscow and Washington support opposite sides in the conflict. Successive rounds of international negotiations have failed to end a conflict that has left more than 290,000 people dead and forced millions to flee, a key contributor to migrant flows into Europe.
EU President Donald Tusk said Europe was “close to limits” on its ability to accept new waves of refugees and urged the broader international community to shoulder its share of the burden.
Ahead of the summit, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned against “rampant” protectionism and nationalism, saying that “building walls” was not the solution.”
The talks also were held in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, which leaves it with the task of renegotiating access to the markets of the rest of the world, including those of the group it is leaving.
It is a huge job for the world’s fifth-biggest economy, and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that Canberra had to get things moving towards having a free trade agreement with the UK.
One major achievement of the conference is signing of Paris Accord. Though the international climate deal was sealed in Paris last December, it still needed to be signed and delivered by at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions to achieve a legal status called “entry into force.”
With Obama’s presence in Hangzhou, Ban specially flew there so that the American and Chinese leaders could formally deposit their “instruments” of ratification or approval of the agreement with the United Nations. Together, the two nations account for a hair under 38 percent of global emissions.
Handing Ban a red folder, Xi said, “hopefully this will encourage other countries to take similar efforts.” Handing Ban a black folder, Obama said, “Someday we may see this as the moment when we decided to save our planet.” He added, “History will judge today’s efforts as pivotal.”
If the world’s two largest emitters and economies can come together, it can help the world move forward on combating climate change.
The move represents a major development for the agreement itself and for Obama because it makes it more likely the accord could enter into force sometime this year, while Obama is still president. However, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump has vowed to scrap the deal if he is elected.
If Hillary Clinton is elected in November, she is expected to continue Obama’s climate policies and to begin implementing the Paris climate agreement immediately. The accord calls on each nation to live up to a pledge that it has submitted to the United Nations to reduce its emissions.
But Trump opposes the accord and has said he would “cancel” the agreement. If the accord has already entered into force, though, doing so would be difficult, and certainly unprecedented. Once the agreement enters into force, its language in Article 28 states that a party cannot then withdraw for three years and there is yet another year for the withdrawal to take effect. Trump, if elected, could simply ignore the agreement, and the international sanctions for doing so are not very severe, primarily calling on any wayward country to explain its lack of cooperation.
Some Republican critics of the accord say it is a treaty that should be submitted to the Senate for ratification, but Obama as the president has the authority to commit to the Paris agreement just as President George HW Bush did when he signed the United Nations Framework on Climate Change.
To roll back the agreement would run counter to prevailing sentiment among American businesses. Much of the change is driven not simply by government policy but by the private sector making investments.
However, a group of Republican state attorneys general has challenged the Clean Power Plan, a key part of Obama’s climate plan, and the case is awaiting a hearing in an appellate court.
Nearly two years ago, Obama and Xi reached a historic agreement on climate change. With the world’s two largest emitters jointly pledging to ratchet down their contributions to global warming, a path was laid for the Paris climate accord a year later. Their negotiators finally bridged the longstanding gap between developed and developing nations and unified the world behind climate action.
Now, the challenge is to bring the agreement into force. Two dozen other nations with just over one percent of global emissions have also formally joined the agreement, either by ratifying it or by another official process. The participation of the United States and China brings the 55-country and 55-percent-of-emissions thresholds much closer, but still falls well short of those goals.
The White House estimates that the 35 countries can lift the total emissions covered to 55.83 percent and that’s without counting India. Obama has pressed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the past year and a half.
The United States and China have continued to work together on climate issues despite sharp differences, most notably over Chinese military installations that have been built on reefs in disputed waters of the South China Sea. That has created tension for US diplomacy with Xi.
Except for the United States and China, many of the countries that have already joined the accord tend to be smaller ones who are particularly worried about rising seas, the Bahamas, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands but don’t emit a lot of greenhouse gases. Thus, getting to 55 percent of emissions is considerably tougher.
Among the world’s larger emitters, those that have yet to formally join include Russia (7.5 percent of emissions), India (4.1 percent), Japan (3.79 percent), Germany (2.56), Brazil (2.48 percent), Canada (1.95 percent), South Korea (1.85 percent), Mexico (1.7 percent), the U.K. (1.55 percent), Indonesia (1.49 percent), South Africa (1.46 percent) and Australia (1.46 percent).
Earlier, as China prepared to host the Group of 20 economic summit meeting in the first week of September 2016 in Hangzhou, it was determined to show the world that it is an equal partner in one of the most exclusive clubs of wealthy nations.
The conference, in this striking lakeside city south of Shanghai, was the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history, and President Xi Jinping had ordered stringent security to ensure it goes off without a hitch.
The government, using all the levers of its authoritarian system, forcing residents to move out of buildings near the meeting site to diminish the risk of protests or attacks and telling workers to take vacations to help clear the city and present a sanitised version of one of China’s most vibrant economic hubs.
Not for the first time, officials want to demonstrate to people at home and abroad, that China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, deserves a bigger role in global governance.
The rotating presidency, now held by China, is the culmination of a long battle for acceptance at the top of the international system. Though China is a member of the United Nations Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, the country’s leadership feels as if it has been treated too much like a Johnny-come-lately at global summit meetings.
Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang, is one of the most prosperous centres in the country and serves as the base for the industrial sector. Mr Xi served as secretary of the Communist Party for Zhejiang in the mid-2000s.
The Group of 20 appeals to China as a place to stake its influence because its members include some developing countries that Beijing enlists as friends, yet as a whole, the group represents more than 80 percent of the world economy and a big portion of world trade. On geopolitical questions, China had made sure that issues like its control in the South China Sea and its overproduction of steel, rattling the United States and Europe, remain absent from the agenda. Yet China took centre stage just as the popular mood in the West soars toward globalisation, the American presidential candidate’s retreat from free trade, and skepticism abounds about the ability of the Group of 20, more of a talk shop than an enforcer, to raise sluggish world growth.
There will not be any policy miracles coming out of the summit, but, that makes the show itself even more important for China that they can organise a major international meeting.
No matter where global summit meetings are held, host cities invest in huge amounts of security to avert terrorist attacks and to dampen protests. In 2012, President Obama moved a G-8 meeting from Chicago to Camp David, Md, because of the fear of large demonstrations.
In Hangzhou, thousands have been requested to move from luxury high-rise buildings near the conference centre, their apartments sealed with tape to prevent a sniper from venturing inside. Government and private sector workers have been granted vacations, and migrant workers have been told to return to their home provinces. In an effort to guarantee blue skies, factories within a wide perimeter around the city have been closed.
The meeting demonstrates the great achievement of China’s opening and reform, and the immense superiority Chinese government’s description of the political and economic system. UN Secretary-General Ban has invited the world’s leaders to the United Nations headquarters in New York on Sep21 to deposit their official instruments for ratification or acceptance and so to bring the Paris agreement into force as soon as possible.
But, Secretary General Ban could not help for any peaceful accord on Syria.
President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 5 September failed to force a breakthrough in negotiations over a cease-fire for Syria but agreed to keep looking for a path to provide humanitarian relief to thousands of besieged civilians in the civil war-ravaged country.
After a 90-minute huddle on the sidelines of an economic summit, the two leaders directed their top diplomats to return to talks quickly, likely later this week.
The US has revealed an eagerness to find an agreement quickly, mindful of the deteriorating conditions around the besieged city of Aleppo. But the US was wary of entering a deal that would not be effective. The two leaders used the talk to clarify sticking points, the official said.
The conversation came hours after the US and Russian negotiators acknowledged that a recent round of intense talk had come up short. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov have for weeks been trying to broker a deal that would curb the violence between the Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government forces and moderate rebels backed by the US.
The strategy has hinged on the two sides agreeing to closer militarily coordination against extremist groups operating in Syria. But Obama has expressed skepticism that Russia would hold to its agreement. In recent days, the State Department has said it is seeking a nationwide cease-fire between Assad’s military and the rebels, rather than another “cessation of hostilities” that is time-limited and only stops fighting in some cities and regions.
