European Union to Fight for Open Trade, Paris Agreement at G20 Summit

The G20 summit is looking a lot more like the G19, according to world leaders who formed a unified front against USA president Donald Trump on climate change. Whatever one's priors are on how climate change is best addressed, it's hard not to immediately recall George Orwell's seminal essay "Politics and the English Language"-on how bad political writing is (at minimum) a tell for very lazy thinking".

Protesters in Washington DC protest against Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord on June 2, 2017.

"She will say that we don't see any need for renegotiation - we support the Paris Agreement because it delivers", they said.

Chancellor Merkel, for whom the summit is an opportunity to show off her diplomatic skills ahead of a federal election in September, welcomed the first face-to-face meeting of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

While taking note of the US's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, the G20 communique said, "The Leaders of the other G20 members agree that the Paris Agreement is irreversible".

The talks at the two-day summit in Hamburg competed for attention with violent clashes between anti-globalisation activists and police. She said that the official summit communique clearly mentioned the United States dissent and the position of all other members.

"I think it's very clear that we could not reach consensus, but the differences were not papered over, they were clearly stated", Merkel told reporters.

Panagariya also said India maintained its position on climate change that it needs time to progress eventually to fully clean fuel. Sky News calls it "the G19 plus 1". The other 19 members reaffirmed their stance at the summit that the agreement was irreversible, according to CNN.

The leaders agreed they would "fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognize the role of legitimate trade defense instruments in this regard".

Yet talk is cheap, and unfortunately the G19 failed to take action to demonstrate that they're serious about the Paris Agreement by actually ending handouts to the fossil fuel industry, instead of once again offering the same exhausted "commitment" backed by little action.

He also announced plans for a new summit in Paris on December 12th to mark the second anniversary of the Paris Agreement and discuss worldwide efforts to step up climate financing and deliver a new wave of more ambitious national climate action plans. Trump's decision drew a sharp criticism from global leaders. We can not afford to expand the old, polluter-friendly trade model with more backdoor deals that lock out public input and lock in fossil fuel dependency.

The objective of the Paris Agreement is to prevent an increase in global average temperature and keep it well below 2°C. The agreement was adopted on December 12, 2015, by 195 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), replacing its predecessor Kyoto Protocol. It was finally ratified on November 4, 2016.