This is part one in a series analyzing the many impenetrable political spaces and forums where climate agendas and policies emerge, evolve and eventually make their way into official climate negotiations.
By Shannon Gibson
We have previously chronicled the many barriers to active participation in United Nations climate negotiations, but our more recent experiences observing the “Paris Summit” got us wondering – what happens when climate policy gets made in other less accessible and seemingly non-transparent spaces?
The political reality today is that not all climate policy is made within the intersessional and annual meetings of the UNFCCC.
Source: The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, Harvard Kennedy School
Climate negotiations occur in “regimes”, which can best be thought of as a cobweb of international institutions, organizations and treaties that all converge around the issue of global climate change. There is no true ruling organization or hierarchy.
As scholars at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies note, climate change discussions are “not limited to the formal UNFCCC framework anymore, but take place in an institutionally much more fragmented setting (1).” And as we recently learned in observing the “Paris Summit,” these other political forums do not hold by the same participation standards of the UNFCCC.
Some international relations scholars argue that these new exclusive clubs, or what is also referred to as “minilateralist" (as opposed to multilateralist) approaches, are what is needed in order to move more quickly and efficiently in the face of the climate crisis (2, 3).
But civil society and critical scholars from the Global South have valid concerns about the “democratic deficit”-- that is the lack of transparency and accountability to affected peoples – that manifests in these spaces (4).
The G20 as “Climate Authority”
One such group to jump into the climate fray is the “Group of Twenty” or G20.
Source: Al Jazeera
The G20, established in 1999 and composed of 19 countries plus the European Union, was originally intended to focus on global financial issues at the turn of the century. However, since the 2008 financial crisis, the G20 has begun to delve into climate issues, particularly in relation to how climate change might affect global growth and how global economic cooperation may provide a “green recovery” path to current and future crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic (1).
Despite representing only 10% of the countries in the world system, collectively the members of the G20 account for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, 80% of gross domestic product and two-thirds of the world’s population. Additionally, recent analysis suggests that meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2 degree target hinges largely on the net-zero pledges of G20 members.
Thus, as Climate Analytics and the World Resources Institute argue, the G20 has an
“outsized role to play in addressing climate change.”
Yet, the G20 only tends to focus on climate change sporadically, however, there are still some interesting trends since the group first explicitly addressed climate change at its 2009 London Summit.
The Group of Twenty’s “Climate Agenda”
First, the G20’s agenda seems to depend on the host of the summit. For example, climate focus was strong in 2009 as the UK was a leader in climate policy, but declined under the 2010 chairmanship of Canada, whose own Environment Commissioner released a damning report in 2021 outlining 30 years of the government’s failure to meet their self-imposed mitigation targets (1).
It also can’t be ignored that G20 summits have historically been held in the Global North, countries of higher socio-economic development that also happen to be the prime culprits of the climate crisis. In fact, of the G20 summits to date, only four (Mexico 2012, China 2016, Argentina 2018 and Indonesia 2022) of the 17 were held in developing countries.
This might explain why it has been found that the framing of climate issues in the G20 is fairly narrow, focusing on energy security, technology or finance.
A report by the Leuven Centre states, “when climate change is discussed by the G20, there is a clear tendency to link it to energy issues and to focus as much as possible on solutions related to energy policy.”
And in an analysis of G20 outcome documents through 2013, it was found that overall climate change commitments relate mostly to fuel subsidies, the stimulation of clean energy technology and the role of international financial institutions in climate funding, which many could argue is a limited range of options for dealing with the climate crisis (1).
In the years since 2013, little has changed.
Source: Adda 24/7 Bankers
In 2019, the United Nations Environmental Program reported that nearly all G20 members were off track to meet their emissions reduction targets despite G20 members all possessing the technological and financial capacity to do so (6).
In looking at the most recent G20 communique, The G20 Bali Leaders Declaration, previously noted trends - - focusing on neoliberal solutions to climate change and energy security - hold true:
Mentions of sustainable development are coupled with calls for economic growth (para 5).
Commitments to food security are accompanied by support for market stability, increased trade, and energy security (para 5, 3).
The first direct mention of “climate” is framed in the context of concerns over energy prices, markets, security and market stability (para 11).
Recognition of energy access, specifically SDG 7, precedes mention of climate targets, and only reiterates earlier weak commitments to “phase down” (as opposed to “phase out”) unabated coal power (para 12).
The following paragraph devoted to climate change initiatives is a mere restatement of the 2015 Paris Agreement commitments, with one notable exception being the recognition of the need for “sustainable and responsible consumption and production (para 13).
Finally, in reference to actions in line with the Paris Agreement, the G20 continues to recommends a “policy mix toward carbon neutrality and net zero [that] should include a full range of fiscal, market and regulatory mechanisms including, as appropriate, the use of carbon pricing and non-pricing mechanisms and incentive.”
This governance and rhetorical gap in past and present communiques only reemphasizes the sad truth that G20 members acknowledge the need to address climate change but often do not take the necessary action to do so. And in the rare case that solutions are offered, they are done so in an echo chamber where civil society is not present and dissenting voices are not heard.
Conclusion
On the one hand, the G20 rose to provide more access and recognition of newly emerging economies compared to its counterparts the G7 and G8, but on the other it still leaves some 160 countries out of the conversation. For these reasons, as well as lack of parliamentary procedures and relatively little opportunities for public control or civil society access, scholars have argued that this sort of “club governance” fails the democratic litmus test.
Despite the G20 being comparatively early in identifying climate change as an economic risk it sought to resolve, the G20 mostly did not turn this rhetoric into action. And as we shall see through this series, when civil society accessibility is diminished and critical voices are silenced, mainstream solutions, mainly those in line with capitalist and neoliberal ideology, tend to prevail.
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Sources:
Happaerts, S., & Bruyninckx, H. (2013). Rising powers in global climate governance: Negotiating in the new world order. Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137397607_13
Cooper, A. F. (2010). The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested ‘steering committee’ for the world. International Affairs, 86(3), 741–757. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2010.00909.x
Kim, J. A., & Chung, S.-Y. (2012). The role of the G20 in governing the climate change regime. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 12(4), 361–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-012-9173-2
Hilbrich, S. (2021, October 10). The Democratic deficit of the G20. Taylor & Francis Online. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449626.2021.1969982
Fyson, C., Geiges, A., Gidden, M., Srouji , J., & Schumer, C. (2021). Closing the gap: the impact of G20 climate commitments on limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Climate Analytics, World Resources Institute 2021. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2021-09/closing-the-gap-impact-g20-climate-commitments-limiting-global-temperature-rise-1-5c.pdf?VersionId=RlUJyvgmgnudRbZDDTG_x_nzcG57JMWd
Christensen, J., Olhoff, A., & Höehne, N. (2019, September 21). Lagging in climate action, G20 nations have huge opportunities to increase ambition. UN Environment Programme. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/lagging-climate-action-g20-nations-have-huge-opportunities-increase
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