G20 make mild pledges on climate neutrality, coal financing

Leaders of the world's biggest economies agreed Sunday to stop funding coal-fired power plants in poor countries and made a vague commitment to seek carbon neutrality "by or around mid-century" as they wrapped up a Rome summit before the much larger United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

While Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and French President Emmanuel Macron described the Group of 20 summit as a success, the outcome disappointed climate activists, the chief of the UN and Britain's leader. The U.K. is hosting the two-week Glasgow conference and had looked for more ambitious targets to come out of Rome.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the G-20's commitments mere "drops in a rapidly warming ocean." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres agreed the outcome was not enough.

"While I welcome the #G20's recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled -- but at least they are not buried," Guterres tweeted. "Onwards to #COP26 in Glasgow."

The G20 countries represent more than three-quarters of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and Britain had hoped for a "G20 bounce" going into the Glasgow COP26 meeting. Environmentalists and scientists have described the UN conference as the world's "last best hope" for nailing down commitments to limit the global rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average.