JakartaPost-Sept 1, 2022
A Group of 20 meeting of environment ministers in Bali concluded on Wednesday without a joint communiqué for a leaders’ summit later in the year, with group chair Indonesia saying some countries had disagreed on the proposed document’s wording. Speaking at a press conference after the one-day gathering, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the meeting chair would be issuing a summary of discussions instead of a joint communiqué as a result of the differing views. “In the process, the discussion on these commitments has been quite challenging given the various views and implications for the interests of each member country,” Siti told reporters. Commitments discussed at Wednesday’s meeting included efforts to reduce the impact of climate change, the loss of biodiversity and land damage, as well as efforts to reduce pollution and environmental damage. The G20 environment ministers’ working group had met in Yogyakarta in March and had come up with a preliminary “pre-zero” draft of the communiqué at a follow-up session in Jakarta in June. The communiqué had been expected to help Indonesia attain its G20 presidency goals of advancing global health architecture, furthering the digital transformation and facilitating a clean energy transition. The ministry’s director general for climate change control, Laksmi Dhewanthi, said the chair’s summary contained 50 paragraphs of pledges that the 20 countries had agreed upon in general, including to strengthen commitments on environmental and climate sustainability. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/08/31/g20-ministers-at-odds-at-bali-climate-action-meeting.html.
