Biden believes that Xi Jinping made a “big mistake” by not attending the G20 and the COP26 climate summit

Chinese president Xi Jinping made a “big mistake” by not going to the summits of the G20 in Rome and the UN climate change (COP26) in the Scottish city of Glasgow, his American counterpart said Tuesday Joe Biden.

“I think it was a big mistake, frankly, that China don’t show up. The rest of the world has looked at China and he wondered what value they are adding “, he claimed Biden at a press conference at the Glasgow Summit.

“It’s a huge issue and they turned their back on it. How do you do that and then claim to be a leader? ”, said Biden.

The same situation occurred with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, who did not attend both appointments.

Xi is the president of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, more than 25% of the total. It has not left China since the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in early 2020.

Biden He recalled that he has pending a telematic summit with his counterpart, but acknowledged that there is still no date set.

Methane Initiative

Methane (CH4) has a greenhouse effect 80 times more powerful than CO2 and its sources, such as open-cast coal mines and livestock, have received relatively little attention so far.

“It is one of the gases that we can reduce more quickly,” stressed the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, recalling that this is responsible for “about 30%” of the accumulated global warming since the industrial revolution.

The commitment was signed by a hundred nations, led by the United States and the European Union. But despite the inclusion of large beef producers such as Brazil and Argentina, they only represent 40% of global methane emissions.

“Today’s announcement does not achieve the 45% reduction that, according to the UN, is necessary to keep global warming below + 1.5ºC,” lamented Murray Worthy, head of the NGO Global Witness.

Argentina joined the promise by emphasizing “the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities” between developed countries, responsible for the vast majority of emissions in the last century, and developing countries.

And its president, Alberto Fernández, asked to guarantee that this will not generate “new forms of protectionism” against its agri-food industry and that the payment of part of its enormous external debt is linked to “the essential investments in green infrastructure that Argentina needs.”

Complicated negotiations

Canceled last year due to the pandemic, the COP26’s mission is to develop the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set the main objective of limiting global warming to + 1.5ºC.

However, the negotiations are announced complicated.

“There is still a long way to go,” warned British Prime Minister and host of the conference, Boris Johnson, declaring himself “cautiously optimistic” as leaders began to leave Glasgow and pass the baton to negotiators.

Seeking to give momentum, the heads of state and government promised not only to emit less gases, but also to absorb more by slowing down and reversing deforestation and land degradation in 2030.

“Our forests are also nature’s way of capturing carbon, pulling CO2 out of our atmosphere,” he said. Biden.

“We have to address this issue with the same seriousness as the decarbonization of our economies,” he added.

According to the NGO Global Forest Watch, only in 2020 the destruction of primary forests increased by 12% compared to the previous year despite the economic stoppage due to the pandemic. And in Brazil, the cradle of the largest lung on the planet, it caused a 9.5% increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

China and Russia and even Brazil did join in on this. The more than 100 countries that signed the initiative represent 85% of the world’s forests.

The agreed measures include supporting activities in developing countries such as the restoration of degraded lands, the fight against forest fires and the defense of the rights of indigenous communities.

And they will be financed with $ 12 billion of public money contributed by 12 countries between 2021 and 2025, plus $ 7.2 billion of private investment by more than 30 global financial institutions.

“It is very important to be carbon neutral but it is also very important to be positive with nature,” said President Iván Duque of Colombia, a country occupied 52% by tropical rainforest and 35% by Amazonian land, which promised to declare 30% of its territory as a protected area in 2022.

It is eight years ahead of schedule, “because we have to act now,” he launched.

Environmental groups denounced the end of deforestation in 2030 as too late and Greenpeace called it a “green light for another decade of forest destruction.”

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