The urgency of addressing climate change cannot be postponed due to the conflict in Ukraine. The G20 group of nations cannot afford to overlook the need for action.
As the G20 leaders’ meeting draws near, it would be advantageous to focus on areas where common ground can be found. India’s proposals regarding adopting an environmentally protective lifestyle (LiFE) and sharing its digital public infrastructure should find broad acceptance. Enhancing the availability of financing is essential for making progress on various fronts. While emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) often stress the importance of development financing to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), advanced economies (AEs) prioritize the creation of global public goods (GPGs), particularly in the realm of climate change risk mitigation. However, alignment is feasible since there is significant overlap between SDGs and GPGs. Those who are most vulnerable are disproportionately affected by natural disasters.
Initiatives such as flood-resistant urban drainage systems, intelligent green infrastructure, and improved air quality not only promote health and development objectives but also curtail forced migration to advanced economies. Climate financing should complement, rather than replace, ongoing development aid.
Another reason for convergence arises from the fact that EMDEs often call for public funds to compensate for the carbon emissions contributed by AEs to the atmosphere. Nonetheless, AEs find themselves constrained, having expended resources on pandemic response and the Ukraine conflict. They have yet to fulfill their earlier promise of providing $100 billion annually by 2020. Current estimates indicate that EMDEs’ mitigation financing requirements could reach up to $4 trillion per annum until 2030.
