The announcement is a major diplomatic achievement for the US president, who ends his term in January.
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China’s hosting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations summit highlights its role as the world’s second-largest economy and a growing force in global diplomacy, but also comes amid sharpening frictions over its territorial claims in the South China Sea, disputes with fellow regional powers South Korea and Japan and criticisms over a sweeping crackdown on dissent at home.
Obama says there was “no shortage” of cynics who doubted an agreement would ever be reached.
In a statement issued on Friday, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry called the gathering a “strategic platform for consolidating Mexico’s global role”, and said the president was heading to the forum with five “main goals”, many of which are the same ones China has singled out for discussion.
The serious business now takes place on the sidelines in informal meetings.
A year ago during the Forum for China-Africa (FORAC) meeting in South Africa, President Xi promised a $60 billion donation for Africa’s development agenda. He called for full implementation of the agreement to prevent or delay the worst effects of climate change.
Also speaking in Hangzhou, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping had both been “far-sighted, bold and ambitious”.
Terror attacks in Europe, the looming US presidential election and bloody ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq are among the issues making the world an uncertain and unsettling place.
He credited China and the USA for “working together to achieve a result that none could achieve alone”.
On Sept. 4-5, President Xi Jinping will host the Group of 20 (G20) summit, which bears the theme of “Toward an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy”. The document certifies that the countries have taken all necessary domestic steps needed to join the agreement.
Li Shuo, a climate adviser with Greenpeace, said both China and the United States were determined to put the treaty into force as soon as possible in order to avoid the risk that any new Republican administration would reject it. Still, the White House says it is confident the USA can meet its targets through investments in renewable energy and an ongoing shift from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas.
To that end, Beijing is eager to promote its work on climate change, its new infrastructure bank which poses a potent challenge to the World Bank, and a massive spending plan to build a new Silk Road.
Experts have said the temperature target is already in danger of being breached, with the U.N.’s weather agency saying 2016 is on course to be the warmest year since records began. That’s as final preparations for the G20 leader’s summit that starts Sunday hit full stride.
“China is angry with nearly everyone at the moment”, said a second Beijing-based Western diplomat familiar with the summit.
Moon and Xi urged other global leaders to accelerate their domestic ratification processes.
The G-20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and the European Union.
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But the welcome didn’t go entirely smoothly.
