On fossil fuels, Panagariya said many other countries including India did not agree on certain date for ending fossil fuel subsidies.
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Ahead of the September 4-5 meeting in Hangzhou, leaders of the world’s most powerful economies had faced growing pressure to declare a date to end the subsidies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to maintain her reputation as a climate champion through next year’s G20 presidency, and if we apply enough pressure, she’ll have to lead the way in securing a strong commitment from world leaders to end all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020.
NGOs are now hoping that Germany, which will take over the chairmanship of the G20 for the next year, will deliver a tight deadline by the time the next summit.
In 2009, G20 leaders committed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
“Time is running out”.
White House Senior Adviser Brian Deese has said it is within the president’s legal authority to ratify the climate agreement without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate because the accord is an “executive agreement,” not a treaty.
Now that the US and China, which are responsible for nearly 40% of global emissions, have ratified the agreement and over 55 countries have already joined or publicly committed to work toward joining it this year, the White House says the Paris Agreement could enter into force by as early as the end of this year.
As the biggest developing country, China insists that every country must take its due responsibility, and the developed countries should offer more solid support for the developing countries. However, in order to do his part so that the United Nations could declare the Paris Agreement to be in legal force sooner rather than later, Obama had to find a way to justify skipping over the constitutional requirement of U.S. Senate consent and still cause the U.S.to become bound to what amounts to a treaty. “Over the past few years, our joint leadership on climate has been one of the most significant drivers of global action”, said Obama.
“So, the final communique plans to welcome countries that plan to ratify (the agreement) by 2016, but others have said they would try to proceed as soon as possible”, said Panagariya, India’s chief negotiator.
“Subsidies on cooking gas for the poor and supply of free electricity to farmers can not be done away with”, the negotiator told the newspaper.
Ultimately, the world’s two biggest polluters joined hands to address the most challenging problem, the world is facing: the climate change when the USA and China signed the Paris climate deal which isn’t a soothing tune for Donald Trump’s ears!
“We now need the other countries to join in and ratify as soon as possible, including the UK. With the G20 presidency moving into Europe next year, the European Union now needs to show leadership and urgently reform its policies and tools that both directly and indirectly allow for financial support to the fossil fuel industry”.
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The China and the United States were the first G20 countries to have their fossil fuel subsidies reviewed in a process chaired by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
