SUSTAINABILITY: ENVIRONMENT
G20 performance on the environment
T he theme of Brazil’s 2024 G20 presidency – ‘Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet’ – highlights a pressing need for the world’s major economies to advance “socio-environmental development that includes a fair and inclusive ecological transition”, with the environment as a core, underpinning dimension of the global sustainable development agenda. Given the history of the G20’s environment agenda, what advances can be made at the Rio Summit in November? Deliberations G20 leaders first addressed the environment, including biodiversity and pollution, at their 2010 Seoul Summit, dedicating 3% of their communiqué to the subject. At the summits in Cannes in 2011 and Los Cabos in 2012, the environment accounted for 1%, dropped to 0.4% at the 2013 St Petersburg Summit, and then fell off the agenda in 2014 and 2015. Since the 2016 Hangzhou Summit, G20 leaders have addressed the environment, although the density of environmental references stayed low, rising to only 8% at the 2020 Riyadh Summit. The 2021 Rome and 2022 Bali summits reached a record high, with 12% each. But this figure dropped again to 8% at the 2023 New Delhi Summit. COMMITMENTS The G20 has made 139 collective, politically binding commitments on the environment and biodiversity. The first such commitment was adopted at the 2010 Seoul Summit, with this category amounting to 1% of the total. In the following years, very few environmental commitments were made: three (1%) in 2011, none in 2012 and one (0.4%) in 2013. None were made between 2014 and 2016.
The 2017 summit then produced a record 57 (11%) environmental commitments. The environment disappeared again from the agenda of the 2018 summit, but then reappeared and mostly grew steadily from 2019 with 5% to 2022 with 12%. The 2023 New Delhi Summit stayed relatively high at 8%. COMPLIANCE The G20 Research Group has assessed 10 priority environmental commitments for compliance by G20 members. Since 2017, compliance has averaged 70%, falling just under the overall average of 71%. It started low, at 59% in 2017, decreasing to 53% in 2019. It rose to 73% for the 2020 summit. The average then entered the 80th percentile, with a high of 88% for 2021 and 84% for 2022. Those three summits – 2020, 2021 and 2022 – produced the highest compliance. No environment commitments from the 2023 New Delhi Summit have yet been assessed. With compliance trending positively, increasing gradually between 2019 and 2021, followed by a slight dip but still nearly record-setting compliance in 2022, one can expect a similar performance this year. By member, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom have the highest compliance at 95%, followed by the European Union at 90%. Next, Canada and Korea have 85%, Argentina and China have 80%, Japan has 75% and France has 70%. Next are the United States with 65%, and India, Italy and Mexico with 60%. South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey each have 55%. At the bottom are Brazil with 45% and Indonesia with 40%. CAUSES AND CORRECTIONS By subject, high compliance, averaging 92%, comes with commitments that reference
Despite positive compliance trends since 2017, with an average of 70% across G20 members, urgent action is needed to enhance socio- environmental development
Angela Min Yi Hou , senior researcher, G20 Research Group
ANGELA MIN YI HOU Angela Min Yi Hou is a senior researcher with the G20 and G7 Research Groups. She holds a master’s degree in international ±ý±ĜųŸüųŅĵƋĘå:ų±Úƚ±ƋåFĹŸƋĜƋƚƋå ŅüFĹƋåųűƋĜŅűĬ±ĹÚ%åƴåĬŅŞĵåĹƋ ƋƚÚĜåŸĜĹ:åĹåƴ±ØƵĜƋĘŸŞåÏĜ±ĬĜŸ±ƋĜŅĹŸ ĜĹƋų±Úå±ĹÚåĹƴĜųŅĹĵåĹƋţĘåƴĜåƵŸĜĹ this publication are her personal ones.
@g20rg : www.g20.utoronto.ca
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G20 BRAZIL: THE RIO SUMMIT — 2024
globalgovernanceproject.org
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