The ongoing escalations and the urgent need to tackle the climate crisis, perhaps form the most significant international issues with far reaching effects on all the nations. The recently concluded G20, held at Rio De Janeiro in Brazil, was to move a step closer towards addressing these very issues. If not, take them head on. However, as pointed out by the President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva himself, “We have worked hard even though we know we have only scratched the surface of the profound challenges facing the world,” the international forum left many geopolitical watchdogs of the opinion that more could have been ticked off this year.
The Group of 20 (G20) founded in 1999 is one of the premium and powerful International forums for economic cooperation. Among the controversial subjects that figured in the talks this year were the risk of an escalation in the war in Ukraine and the prospects post the return of Trump as US President and his isolationist policies. However, the G20 leaders failed to overcome the deadlock over UN Climate Talks, divergences over the war in Ukraine among other sensitive issues.
The stalemate over climate talks unresolved
Notably, ahead of the summit, the UN had implored the G20 leaders of the developed economies on the need to break the stalled climate talks in Azerbaijan. This required boosting funding for developing economies, especially those struggling with global crisis and who will most likely suffer the maximum brunt of climate collapse and global warming. The stalemate in UN climate talks being resolved was the single most important agenda before the group. UN Chief Antonio Guterres had said ahead of the meeting that G20 members needed to show “leadership and compromise” to rescue the deadlocked talks.
COP 29 delegates had been banking on the leaders, including all the key players, to move forward on climate finance negotiations or atleast offer directions to break the deadlock. “We cannot succeed without them, and the world is waiting to hear from them,” COP President Mukhtar Babayev had said on Monday, adding, “We urge them to use the G20 meeting to send a positive signal of their commitment to addressing the climate crisis. We want them to provide clear mandates to deliver at COP29.” Even though the G20 pledged its support to the COP29 presidency and recognised the New Delhi declaration (emphasizing the need to scale up climate financing from billions to trillions), there was no quantification available for the amount they are actually willing to contribute to the cause. The G20 countries, including China, Russia, the European Union, among others, account for 80% of the global emissions.
G20 fails to agree on Ukraine
It didn’t take long for Ukraine’s allies in the West to criticize the group for failing to not name Russian invasion even as the Russia-Ukraine conflict entered its 1000th day. The final text from the summit in Rio de Janeiro was compared to that of last year. Many deemed it as significantly weaker than that of previous year, as this year the text only highlighted the human suffering in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused G20 leaders of the same. “Today these leaders are sitting in Brazil. Did they directly say anything? Nothing,” he said at a press conference, doubling down on the leaders for failing to form a “strategy to end the conflict.”
The silver lining and the next summit
As Brazil handed over the G20 presidency to South Africa, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva underscored the main outcomes of Brazil's presidency. “The creation of the G20 Social Summit, a roadmap for improving Multilateral Development Banks, the debates on Africa and external debt, Women’s Empowerment Working Group, among others.” He also mentioned that, “This year, we held more than 140 meetings in 15 Brazilian cities. We have again issued consensus declarations by almost all the working groups. We have learned that the greater the interaction between the Sherpa and the Finance Tracks, the greater and more significant the results of our work will be. We have worked hard, even though we know that we have only scratched the surface of the profound challenges facing the world,” he concluded about the presidency. With the transition of the presidency, now both the expectations and the focus shift to South Africa. By 2026, all the countries in the group will have held the presidency at least once. But the same can’t be said of all the issues.
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