France’s Macron praises G20 progress on climate

French President Emmanuel Macron calls the Group of 20 summit in Rome “a success” that delivered results, especially on climate change issues, “despite many divisions” between nations.

Macron says the two-day summit provided an opportunity “to revive convergence” among the world’s largest economies ahead of the much larger United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland that has gotten underway as the G20 meeting ended.

The French leader acknowledges that more efforts are needed to reach the goal set in the 2015 Paris climate accord of holding the global average increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius ( 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

“Now, all the work will focus on getting additional efforts from China, from other emerging countries, from Russia, in order to keep going in the right direction,” Macron says.

“Indeed, we must get the G20 economies to do more on the coal energy in their country’s energy mix. That’s the next step,” he adds. “We didn’t reach it here…That was not realistic.”