This blog comes a bit late in the day, but I still wanted to put together some of the important thoughts that have emerged on the G20 summit this year. The big show about getting nothing done – this seems to be the prevailing criticism about the G20 meet in Japan’s Osaka. Of course, Ivanka Trump seems to have made more news than the key issues_sustainable growth, innovation and health_for the summit in 2019. Ahead of the summit, trade analysts keenly watched the highly anticipated talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expecting a breakthrough in the ongoing trade war between the two economic superpowers. G20, after all, is a congregation of some of the world’s largest and most powerful economies where world leaders deliberate on the important economic and political issues of the day.
Yet, this year’s event has come under severe criticism from trade experts who mostly are terming the G20 as utterly incapable of advancing solutions to global challenges. It’s true, if you look at it, that G20 actually is a forum of bureaucrats who are good at meetings but not really generating workable outcomes. This year, for instance, what really transpired at the summit are mere mentions of climate change in its communique and US’s repeated justification of its withdrawal from the Paris accord, both quite dull and drab efforts at communicating urgency on the very serious issue of climate change that has begun its onslaught across the world — from record heat waves in Europe, unprecedented rains and landslides to ecological disasters in Japan. (If you need more convincing on Paris accord and climate change, here is a very useful piece that I absolutely recommend to you.)
All said and done, what is true is also that globally, a broad-based organization taking care of world trade issues at the scale of G20 hasn’t emerged yet. All the best ideas that world leaders may have on pressing global issues in trade and development may stay as ideas if not for a forum like G20 where they, in the least, get discussed.
G20 this year, for instance, didn’t move forward on the utterly critical Dispute Settlement issues, a longstanding pain point in international trade, even as American president Donald Trump keeps violating all trade rules with impunity.
Folks at the NRDC, Han Chen and Claire Wang specifically, have termed this year’s G20 summit as symbolic of Japan’s failure to commit to issues of climate change and coal phaseout. Japan is the world’s 6th largest contributor to cumulative carbon emissions.
They say:
Despite the climate costs Japan has already suffered, its own climate policies are woefully out of date. Prior to the G20 summit, Japan released an uninspiring long term climate strategy that is severely out of line with climate needs, along with watered down language on climate in the draft G20 communique. Japan’s plans for domestic coal expansion and international coal finance continue to draw international criticism, since OECD countries should be phasing out of coal by 2030. The G20 as a whole has also dramatically expanded coal finance, spending at least $63.9 billion on coal per year, despite committing a decade ago to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
….Two weeks before the G20 summit, Japan’s cabinet adopted its Long Term Strategy on climate change as part of its commitments under the Paris Agreement. The Strategy seeks to achieve net zero emissions in the second half of the century, but does not set a specific date by which to meet this target. It also maintains Japan’s existing goal to cut emissions 80% by 2050, without specifying a baseline from which to measure emissions reductions. By delaying its net-zero target until after the middle of the century, Japan remains inconsistent with a 1.5C warming limit, which requires reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
So much for the drama in world trade and continued inefficacy of global institutions who continue to be hijacked by the hegemony of the US. Over to next year’s summit now, but if this no-show continues, the voices that doubt its very existence will only grow louder and rightly so.