US President Joe Biden laid into ‘lying dog-faced pony soldiers’ who deny local weather change is an issue after the G20 group of main economies was criticised for failing to endorse powerful measures to section out fossil fuels.
Biden’s leftfield remarks got here after the latest summit of G20 leaders in India backed calls to triple renewable vitality by 2030 and stated $4 trillion a 12 months might be wanted to finance the vitality transition – however left any toughening of their place on hydrocarbons out of their last assertion.
Quizzed concerning the end result at a press convention in Vietnam, Biden stated there are numerous “lying dog-faced pony soldiers out there about global warming. But not any more. All of a sudden they’re all realising, it’s a problem”.
The President’s remarks – a reference to a cowboy film starring John Wayne – left some observers scratching their heads however mirrored the divisions that critics say are holding again the kind of strong motion towards fossil gas manufacturing that’s wanted to hit local weather objectives.
The G20 solely repeated calls to finish unabated coal-power however failed to deal with the broader international fossil fuels sector, an omission that critics say displays the continued affect of huge hydrocarbons producers and shoppers on the local weather debate within the run-up to the COP28 local weather summit later this 12 months.
The UN’s ‘Global Stocktake’ of local weather motion on Friday stated a “rapid reduction of the world economy’s reliance on fossil fuels towards clean energy is central for reaching global net zero CO2 and GHG emissions”.
Alden Meyer of local weather and vitality think-tank E3G stated: “G20 leaders have embraced the goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, but much work lies ahead, particularly on mobilising the trillions of dollars in annual public and private finance needed to turn that aspiration into reality.
“To have any chance of meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limitation goal, sharp reductions in the production and use of all fossil fuels – including, but not limited to, coal – are also essential, and on that issue, the G20 leaders are missing in action.”
