OREANDA-NEWS. The United States President Joe Biden said he was disappointed by the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rome. He said this, speaking at a press conference in Rome at the end of the summit.

"The disappointment concerns the fact that Russia and not only Russia but also China de facto did not show up to discuss climate change commitments,"- he said.

This was Biden's response to a request by journalists to comment on statements by "some non-governmental organizations" that the G20 climate agreements did not inspire confidence. The US president also called for a focus on "what China is not doing, what Russia is not doing, what Saudi Arabia is not doing" on climate issues.

The annual G20 summit took place in the Italian capital on 30-31 October. Participants of the meeting of the Group of Twenty, after two days of discussions in Rome, reached an agreement on limiting global warming to one and a half degrees Celsius, but acknowledged that achieving this goal will require significant and effective measures of the entire world community.

The Russian and Chinese leaders did not attend this year's summit. They communicated with conference participants by video link. In particular, Putin, speaking at the meeting, said that Russia, like other countries, was experiencing the effects of global warming. "We are facing both desertification and soil erosion. We are especially concerned about melting of the permafrost, which accounts for a significant part of our territory",- said the head of the state. He noted that the average annual temperature in Russia is rising faster than the global average and has increased by almost half a degree in ten years, while the changes in the Arctic are even faster.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said after the summit that the G20 leaders' meeting had not lived up to his hopes. "While I welcome the G20's commitment to global solutions, I am leaving Rome with unfulfilled hopes, but at least they are not buried,"- he said.