The G8/G20 meetings ended on Sunday with world leaders largely ignoring mounting international outrage about the impacts of fossil fuels and global climate change.

Despite BP's ongoing colossal oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, the G20 remains unwilling to break the world's addiction to dirty energy. Rather than strengthen their commitments to reducing fossil fuel subsidies, they slid backwards. While this action is sure to delight the fossil fuel lobbyists working hard to maintain their free ride, it does not change the reality of climate change. The planet is continuing to warm dangerously, communities continue to be ravaged by its effects and yet world leaders still shirk their responsibility to safeguard the climate for current and future generations.

Leaders committed to ending fossil fuel subsidies at last year's G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. In Toronto last week, those prior commitments were watered down, the fossil subsidy phase-out made "voluntary," and Europe said it needs a dozen more years to even consider phasing down coal subsidies. The disappointing outcome of the G8 and G20 meetings in Canada over the weekend shows there is still a lot of work left to do in order to secure international cooperation on halting dangerous climate change and ushering in a safer, more secure clean energy future.

People around the world will not tolerate further inaction, as demonstrated by the outrage over BP's Deepwater disaster. We still expect leaders to lead.