TOKYO, June 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – France wants the G20 to issue a statement
committing to strong action on climate change and considers the issue a “red
line”, President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday ahead of the summit.
Macron was speaking in Tokyo on a visit ahead of this week’s Group of 20
meeting, where climate change will be among several contentious issues on the
table, along with trade and tensions with Iran.
The French leader held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe on Wednesday, reaffirming an alliance that has been tested in recent
months after the arrest of auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn, a French citizen, once headed an auto alliance of Japan’s Nissan
and Mitsubishi Motors and France’s Renault, and his arrest has laid bare
tensions in the partnership.
The G20 is expected to be dominated by the ongoing trade war between China
and the United States, as well as concerns that spiralling tensions between
Washington and Tehran could lead to war.
But climate change will also be a battleground, with Washington likely to
oppose strong references to the Paris climate deal, an agreement from which
it plans to withdraw.
– Climate ‘red line’ –
Macron said France would refuse to sign any agreement that bowed to such
demands, amid reports that Japan is seeking consensus language that could
water down previous communique wording on climate change.
“I have a red line,” he told a gathering of French citizens before meeting
Abe.
“If we do not talk about the Paris accord and if, in order to find
agreement among the 20 in the room, we are not able to defend climate
ambitions, it will be without France.”
“If one or the other of them doesn’t want to sign, they can say so, but we
must not collectively lose our ambition,” he added.
Nearly 200 nations have signed the Paris climate agreement, which commits
signatories to efforts to cap global warming at “well below” two degrees
Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).
But US President Donald Trump plans to withdraw Washington from the deal,
a process that will take several years.
At a press conference after meeting Abe, Macron also raised the issue of
trade tensions, urging a multilateral approach.
Trump is expected to hold talks with China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines
of the G20, with hopes that the leaders can agree a truce in a trade war that
has been damaging for the global economy.
“For me, the solution to the difficulties that we are encountering is not
in bilateral accords, is not in bypassing international rules, is not in
protectionism,” he said.
“It is very clearly in the modernisation of the multilateral trade
framework,” he said.
– Alliance tested –
And he and Abe said they had discussed tensions with Iran and wanted to
help stabilise the region as fears grow that Washington and Tehran could be
headed for military conflict.
Macron’s trip, which will see him become only the second foreign leader —
after Trump — to meet Japan’s newly enthroned Emperor Naruhito, comes after
a bruising time for ties between Paris and Tokyo.
The alliance has been tested by the arrest of Ghosn and increasingly
strained relations between Nissan and Renault, with profound differences
remaining over how the auto relationship should evolve.
Renault has sought closer integration with Nissan, which the Japanese firm
opposes.
Earlier Wednesday, Macron called the auto alliance something “we value
highly”, urging all involved to “make it stronger in the face of
international competition”.
“This is something we must do together,” he added.
Macron’s comments on the subject are being watched closely by Japanese
officials, given that the French state holds a 15-percent stake in Renault.
Macron declined however to be drawn on the specifics of Ghosn’s case,
saying it was not the role of the French state to intervene directly, beyond
assuring Ghosn’s presumption of innocence and right to a defence.
After talks with Abe and the emperor, Macron and his wife Brigitte will
stop briefly in Kyoto for a cultural visit before continuing on to Osaka
where the G20 talks will run from June 28-29.