ADVOCACY The G20 Rio Summit: sustainability in focus

November 2024 will be pivotal for climate diplomacy, with COP29 in Azerbaijan and the G20 Rio Summit driving the sustainability agenda forward. Brazil aims to lead with ambitious climate targets and a commitment to reducing inequality

November is shaping up to be the most influential month of 2024 for climate-based diplomacy and collaborative discussion. While the world’s biggest climate conference, the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, will take place in Azerbaijan from 11–22 November, the 19th G20 Summit will also run during this period, on 18–19 November. While the G20 summit traditionally concentrates on economic and financial issues, this year’s host nation, Brazil, has decided to make sustainability the central theme. Participants will address the biggest challenges facing our shared global environment.

Under the theme ‘Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet’, this year’s summit agenda will prioritise topics that cut right to the heart of social inclusion, equality and the shared rights of all humans to enjoy a life free of hunger, thirst and environmental degradation.

Brazil’s budding leadership on the world stage

With its young population and dynamically growing economy, Brazil has been steadily building its political influence within South America, the BRICS nations and the wider global community. The year 2024 is key for Brazil, as its government – presided over by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – aims to consolidate its position as a regional leader and global advocate for faster action on climate change – a crucial priority for safeguarding the health of Brazil’s population and a springboard for further economic transformation.

Brazil is leading the way with increasingly ambitious climate targets, including a 92% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 2035 and the complete end of Amazonian deforestation by 2030. Showing success across these focal areas will continue to build its leadership legitimacy in high-level international talks such as the G20 summit, which the government hopes will further build Brazil’s position as host of COP30 next year.

Equality and social inclusion

Brazil’s sustainability ambitions extend beyond environmental protection; the foremost objective of the Lula administration is to reduce all forms of societal inequality, both domestically and internationally. This priority will be at the forefront of the agenda at this year’s G20 summit.

Key agenda items that present the perfect platform to discuss the host nation’s specific ambitions at the national and international levels include:

• Food security. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Lula noted that hunger affects 735 million humans worldwide, and that number is increasing thanks to widening wealth gaps. Lula aims to end hunger in Brazil by 2030, while calling for a similar global target. The G20 summit will look at boosting global food security through innovation in agriculture, more equitable farming practices and logistics, and better mechanisms for collective efforts on fighting famine; and
• Eradication of key diseases. Inextricably linked to poverty, treatable diseases are still a major blight on developing countries around the world. The summit aims to put in place stronger healthcare access pathways that will lead to the eradication of diseases that have tried and tested vaccines, as well as putting an end to HIV/AIDS.

Keeping the Paris Agreement target alive

Brazil is a world leader in transforming industries and economic practices to improve environmental sustainability: 90% of its domestic electricity consumption and 50% of its overall energy production comes from clean sources.

Admittedly, Brazil benefits greatly from its vast hydroelectricity capacity, but that has not caused the country to rest on its laurels. Brazil was way ahead of the bioethanol fuel curve, introducing it in 1975. More recently, Brazil has led the way on integrating biofuels into its public transport systems, accounting for 22% of Brazil’s transport energy in 2022. At last year’s G20 summit in India, Brazil used its experience and leadership to help launch the Global Biofuels Alliance, a new initiative to boost biofuel adoption and innovation worldwide.

The climate change section of this year’s G20 summit agenda is almost as detailed and diverse as the items dedicated to the global economy. Standout topics include:

• Bolstering biodiversity;
• Reinforcing the renewables revolution;
• Expanding global energy security; and
• Making trade and climate action mutually beneficial.

Fairer taxation and funding

Alongside concrete measures for improving climate action and more rapidly decarbonising the global economy, Brazil’s government has repeatedly called for faster progress on improving the speed, fairness and transparency of climate financing mechanisms.

Brazil has proposed a raft of measures to this end – greater allocation of contributions to climate relief funds, reform of multilateral development banks and even a 2% tax on billionaires (which proponents claim could raise $250 billion in revenue annually).

Given the complex and diversified nature of billionaires’ wealth, pushing this last plan through will require robust international cooperation as part of a wider debate planned on global taxation reform.

Ambition and backbone

With the G20 Summit and COP29 rapidly approaching, it’s hard not to feel that the forces of change are aligning. Brazil has made bold overtures to its friends and allies within South America and abroad so that their voices will be heard on climate change.

With a broad range of ambitious yet highly targeted measures to bring to the table in November, there is already a sense that Brazil’s increasingly confident leadership can inject much-needed momentum into some of the most pressing climate issues facing the world today.