G20 Meeting Leaves Much To Be Desired On Climate Action
Energy and environment ministers at the Group of 20 meeting of industrialized nations that took place in Naples, Italy, late last week failed to come to a consensus on several key commitments to tackle climate change in their final communique.
There were two points in particular that were not agreed upon: one was around phasing out coal-fired power generation and the other was around whether to move more quickly to decarbonize than was agreed to under the Paris Agreement. Most countries were in agreement on the first point, but several countries, including China, India and Russia objected to the language.
The final communique did include an agreement that countries would boost their climate targets, known as “nationally determined contributions,” ahead of the upcoming COP26 meeting, which will take place this November in Glasgow, and the issue of coal is expected to be discussed again at another G20 summit in October.
However, the failure to come to an agreement on concrete targets has experts worried about the ability of countries to make progress at COP26. “It’s a decent outcome in terms of what the expectations were. Of course, in terms of the state of the planet and the climate emergency that we’re in — the impacts that are mounting every day — it’s not adequate,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at E3G.
Sources: Reuters, Financial Times, Axios, The Guardian. Commentary: Justin Worland, TIME
This is a quick news brief from Nexus Media.
Featured image: G20 map (public domain)
China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
Read more: California now has nearly 50% more EV chargers than gas nozzles
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Tesla is starting to experience some consequences for misleading Full Self Driving customers – at least that’s the finding of one arbitration ruling that has Tesla refunding one customer $10,000 plus legal fees for failing to deliver on their promises. Find out more on today’s legally challenging episode of Quick Charge!
An arbitration “court” found that Tesla misled customers with its Full Self Driving product, and has now been forced to refund at least one person’s $10,000 payment (plus legal fees) for the not-quite autonomous driving software. France, too, is piling on claims of deceptive business practices – but there’s some good news for FSD fans! If you’re still willing to pay for it, Tesla will thrown in 0% financing on a brand new Cybertruck.
Check out the relevant links, below, to learn more.
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