A Group of 20 leaders’ summit in South Africa adopted a declaration addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges on Saturday after it was drafted without U.S. input in a move a White House official called “shameful”.
The declaration, using language to which Washington has been opposed, “can’t be renegotiated,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson told reporters, reflecting strains between Pretoria and the Trump administration over the event.
“We had the entire year of working towards this adoption and the past week has been quite intense,” the spokesperson said.
Ramaphosa, host of this weekend’s gathering of Group of 20 leaders in Johannesburg, had earlier said there was “overwhelming consensus” for a summit declaration.
DECLARATION MENTIONS CLIMATE CHANGE
Envoys from the G20 – which brings together the world’s major economies – drew up a draft leaders’ declaration on Friday without U.S. involvement, four sources familiar with the matter said.
The declaration used the kind of language long disliked by the Trump administration: stressing the seriousness of climate change and the need to better adapt to it, praising ambitious targets to boost renewable energy and noting the punishing levels of debt service suffered by poor countries.
The mention of climate change was a snub to U.S. President Donald Trump, who doubts the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities. U.S. officials had indicated they would oppose any reference to it in the declaration.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In opening remarks to the summit, Ramaphosa said: “There’s been overwhelming consensus and agreement that one of the other tasks we should undertake right at the beginning is to … adopt our declaration.”
“We should not allow anything to diminish the value, the stature and the impact of the first African G20 presidency,” he said.
His bold tone was a striking contrast to his subdued decorum during his visit to the White House in August, in which he endured Trump repeating a false claim that there was a genocide of white farmers in South Africa, brushing aside Ramaphosa’s efforts to correct his facts.
Trump said U.S. officials would not attend the summit because of allegations, widely discredited, that the host country’s Black majority government persecutes its white minority.
TRUMP REJECTS SOUTH AFRICA’S G20 AGENDA
The U.S. president has also rejected the host nation’s agenda of promoting solidarity and helping developing nations adapt to weather disasters, transition to clean energy and cut their excessive debt costs.
“The multilateral platform cannot be paralysed on the basis of the absence of someone who was invited,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told public broadcaster SABC.
“This G20 is not about the U.S. It’s about all the 21 members of the G20. We are all equal members of the G20. What it means is that we need to take a decision. Those of us who are here have decided this is where the world must go.”
But in a sign of the many geopolitical fissures underlying the agreed text, EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen warned in a speech about the “the weaponisation of dependencies” which she said “only creates losers”.
This was an apparent veiled reference to China’s export curbs on rare earths vital for the world’s energy transition, as well as defence and digital technology.
The United States will host the G20 in 2026 and Ramaphosa said he would have to hand over the rotating presidency to an “empty chair”.
The South African presidency on Saturday reiterated its rejection of a U.S. offer to send the U.S. charge d’affaires for the G20 handover.
“The president will not hand over to a junior embassy official the presidency of the G20. It’s a breach of protocol that is not going to be accommodated,” presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.
“America chose to boycott the summit. That’s their choice, and that’s their prerogative to do so.”
(REUTERS)
