Between climate crisis and nuclear threat, the G20 summit ended Tuesday, November 19 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a particularly gloomy climate, a few weeks before Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Climate policy, fight against hunger and inequalities, wars… Here is what to remember from the main positions adopted during this meeting of the world’s largest economic powers.
Timid statements on climate
A “fight for survival”. This is how Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva raised one of the major challenges of this two-day summit: saving the climate. Alas, the conclave of leaders of the main economies of the planet failed to give any decisive impetus in this area, while the UN climate conference, COP29, entered its home stretch in Baku , in Azerbaijan.
However, expectations were high in Rio, the G20 (19 countries, as well as the European Union and the African Union) accounting for 85% of global GDP and 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. At the end of a year of Brazilian presidency of the forum, and before hosting COP30 next year in Belem, in the heart of the Amazon, Lula urged action. “We cannot postpone the task of Baku to Belem,” he warned during the final plenary session of the summit on Tuesday morning.
But these calls cannot hide the limits of the joint declaration adopted Monday evening by the G20 leaders. The text evokes “the need to increase climate finance” and bring it to “trillions of dollars, from all sources”, emphasizing the needs of poor countries. But for some NGOs, the forum did not go far enough on the question of who should pay. And he even backed down on the subject of phasing out fossil fuels, by not explicitly using the wording that had been taken from the previous climate conference in Dubai.
Taxation of the super-rich
The G20 leaders, on the other hand, endorsed on Monday the idea of cooperating to “effectively” tax very wealthy people. “With full respect for fiscal sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that very wealthy individuals are effectively taxed,” the final statement said. The economist specializing in inequalities Gabriel Zucman, from whom the Brazilian presidency of the G20 had commissioned a report on the subject earlier this year, welcomed “a historic decision”. This commitment is “a start” to prevent inequalities from widening, also welcomed the World Inequality Lab (WIL) research center.
Global Alliance Against Hunger
Lula can also boast of having been able to launch a Global Alliance against hunger and poverty on Monday, with a total of 148 members: beyond the 82 signatory countries, the European Union, the African Union, 24 international organizations, nine financial institutions and 31 NGOs joined this group.
The project is ambitious: to reach half a billion people by 2030, by giving an international dimension to the fight against hunger and inequalities, by providing financial resources or by replicating initiatives that work locally. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), for example, announced on Friday a contribution of $25 billion.
This Alliance “could be a turning point” but “it must go further” by “urgently responding to the devastating impacts of climate change on the food systems of the Global South”, reacted the NGO Oxfam in a press release.
The specter of Donald Trump’s return
“In the fight for survival, there is no place for negationism and disinformation,” Lula insisted during the summit. The message takes on particular resonance before the return of Donald Trump, who has questioned the reality of climate change and said he wants to take the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement again, as during his first term. The United States is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.
Despite his absence, the shadow of the next president of the United States loomed large. Without naming him openly, the leaders present in Brazil announced “the turbulence” which weighs on international politics in view of his taking office on January 20. French President Emmanuel Macron, who did not mince his words about Donald Trump during the latter’s first term (2017-2021), was content with indirect warnings on the impact of his return to business on the climate or pricing policies.
American officials assured that Donald Trump was not mentioned during Joe Biden’s bilateral meetings with his counterparts, and that this was not a cause for concern either. “I don’t think we’re expecting any big shifts in how other countries view the world and how they view their relationship with us,” Jon Finer, the Democratic president’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters.
Nuclear threat and wars
Despite the Brazilian president’s wish to talk about the “poor” rather than wars, the latter also emerged at the Rio summit, starting with Ukraine. On Sunday, on the eve of the summit, Washington authorized kyiv to use its long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia. On the 1,000th day of the war, Moscow claimed on Tuesday that such an attack had taken place on the night of Monday to Tuesday, and President Vladimir Putin signed the decree expanding its possibilities of using nuclear weapons.
From Rio, the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov promised an “appropriate” response to the Ukrainian firing of American ATACMS missiles against Russia. Denouncing Washington’s involvement, he spoke of a “new phase” in the conflict. Americans and British condemned “irresponsible rhetoric” from Moscow. Emmanuel Macron called Vladimir Putin “to reason”, criticizing his “escalatory” posture. The French president, who had estimated on Sunday that the “context” did not lend itself at this stage to a new exchange with his Russian counterpart, briefly shook hands with Sergei Lavrov during a family photo at the G20, but both men didn’t really talk to each other.
Without condemning Moscow, the G20 condemned “the threat or use of force to seek territorial gains”. And he welcomed “all relevant and constructive initiatives in favor of a just” and “lasting” peace in Ukraine.
Ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon
The G20 also called for a “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, while the Israeli army continues its offensives there. “While expressing our deep concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the escalation in Lebanon, we emphasize the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance and strengthen the protection of civilians.”
At the end of this twilight summit, Lula handed over to his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country will chair the forum from December for a year. With sobs in his voice, he quoted Nelson Mandela, hero of the fight against apartheid in South Africa: “It is easy to demolish and destroy, the heroes are those who build,” he summarized.