G20 performance on the environment

Despite positive compliance trends since 2017, with an average of 70% across G20 members, urgent action is needed to enhance socio-environmental development

The 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 sustainability. Also high, at 90%, is the commitment to raise public awareness of consumer waste.

Lower compliance, averaging 54%, has come with marine-related commitments, including plastic waste. In this group, the commitment on researching marine waste and its links to human health only averaged 40%. Also low, at 50%, was the commitment to engage the private sector in reducing marine litter.

In between, averaging 60%, are the two commitments that included targets to plant 1 trillion trees and to conserve 30% of global land.

Of note, the beginning of a gradually improving compliance record was marked by the inauguration of annual meetings of G20 environment ministers under Japan’s presidency in 2019.

These findings suggest the G20 should continue linking environmental issues with the sustainable development agenda and continue to raise public awareness of consumer habits that can reduce negative environmental externalities. The G20 could consider linking its environmental agenda with Sustainable Development Goal 3
on health and well-being in order to improve compliance with its environment-health commitments.

The G20 should continue to hold pre-summit environment ministers’ meetings. It should show strong support for the Ocean 20 engagement group, established under the Brazilian G20 presidency.

Overall, G20 leaders should consider including more environment-related language in consensus negotiations and introduce compliance catalysts when crafting the communiqué. Compliance catalysts include introducing references to time-bound commitments, monitoring and reporting mechanisms, specific instruments to mobilise resources and partnerships, and engagement with civil society and the private sector.

Conclusion

The global climate crisis calls for a more ambitious, elaborate and compliance-anchored environmental agenda at the Rio Summit. Given the state of our world, the G20 members’ 70% compliance rate on the environment should be improved with urgency.