A meeting of the Group of 20 energy ministers in India ended without consensus on phasing out fossil fuels, adding to slow progress on climate diplomacy ahead of key meetings this year.
While some countries agreed on the need to phase out the continued use of oil and gas, others argued that emissions concerns could be addressed through carbon removal technologies, according to the meeting’s outcome document.
“A couple of countries in the Middle East felt that emissions problems could be addressed with technologies like carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS) or other abatement technologies,” Raj Kumar Singh, India’s energy minister, told reporters after the meeting. “Both ways are fine.”
“Overall, all members were on the same page about the need to address climate change,” Singh added.
Saturday’s talks in the coastal province of Goa were intended to set the tone for the energy transition ahead of a meeting of G-20 leaders in September and the COP28 forum in Dubai in December.
Ministers met as extreme weather in parts of Europe, Asia and the US, including heatwaves that have broken temperature records and caused deaths in India and elsewhere. This has led to calls for more urgency in climate action and for nations to commit more to limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5ºC.
Negotiations last week between the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, failed to make much progress, although the countries will speed up discussions and find an agreement on the need to reduce coal use, US climate envoy John Kerry said.
Officials in Goa also failed to agree on a common language to criticize Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which upended global supply chains and affected energy supplies in many countries.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck blasted Russian First Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin for promoting a “twisted worldview” about the origins of the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine more generally. Habeck, who is also the Climate Action Minister, attended the meeting as the final stop of a three-day trip to India leading a delegation of German lawmakers and business leaders.
According to Habeck, Russia and Saudi Arabia opposed a deal to triple renewable generation capacity by 2030, and China blocked further cooperation on critical raw materials.
There was also unanimity on the mobilization of low-cost financing for the energy transition, the development of technologies such as clean hydrogen, energy storage and universal access to energy, according to the meeting document.
The group also agreed to consider blue hydrogen, produced in a process that emits carbon dioxide that is sequestered, on a par with green hydrogen.
