G20 climate summit

About Group of 20, 1999

1. It is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the EU.
2. Objectives: It deals with International Financial stability and all economic issues, especially Trade wars.
3. It has 86% of Gross World Product (GWP) and 80% of World Trade. 2/3rd of World's population.
4. Members = 19 countries + EU:
   1. USA, Canada, Mexico; Argentina + Brazil;
   2. EU + Germany + France + UK + Italy;
   3. South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Turkey;
   4. India; Indonesia; Australia;
   5. Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.
5. Objectives
   1. G20 was formed with the aim of promoting of International Financial stability.
   2. It aims to solve BoP problems and financial markets by improving the coordination of monetary, fiscal and financial policies.
6. Areas of topics: Economic and Financial issues, global economy, women in the labour market, sustainable development, global health, fight against terrorism etc.
7. 2 Working channels of G20
   1. Finance Channel: headed by MoF and Central Bank.
   2. Sherpas Channel: Chief of Cabinet of Ministers. G20 Sherpa = Shaktikanta Das (personal representative of leader).

G20 Summits

1. 1st G20 Summit = Berlin. G20 has no permanent staff.
2. The chairmanship rotates annually between nations divided into regional groupings.
3. G20 Troika = When a new county assumes the presidency, it works for hand in hand predecessor and successor Presidency. So Argentina (2018 Presidency) will work with Germany (2017 Presidency) and Japan (2019 Presidency). 2019 Summit is in Osaka, Japan.
4. G20 2014 Brisbane Summit (Australia) talks about Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.
5. 2016 Summit in Hangzhou. 2017 Summit in Hamburg.
6. G20 2018 Buenos Aires Summit (Argentina) = 9 Point Agenda
   1. It managed to issue a Joint Communique with APEC Summit which happened in Papua New Guinea. USA and China did not agree. Communiques are not binding in the legal sense but binding in a political sense.
   2. Strong and active cooperation against Fugitive Economic Offenders.
   3. Cooperation in legal procedures.
   4. FATF should be assigned with Automatic Exchange of Information and standard definition of FEO.
   5. UN Convention Against Corruption and UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime should be fully implemented.
   6. Protectionism issues.
7. 11th G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan in 2019 aka Digital Economy Summit.
   1. India talked about Data localization guidelines as the new issue. Hence the name. We did not attend Digital Economy Sumit as it is against RBI's Data Localisation guidelines.
   2. Issues raised by India
      1. Greater Participation of MSME in developing countries.
      2. Digital taxation & non compliant tax.
      3. Fugitive Economic Offenders. For > 100 crores PMLA should establish Special Court.
      4. To reduce BEPS, India wants to tax global digital companies. Digital Taxation is important. Eg FB in Ireland. India had introduced this concept in the Income Tax Act for taxation of non-residents in India or global digital companies.
      5. Automatic Exchange of Information for Non resident financial account to reduce tax evasion.
   3. It discussed 8 themes crucial to Global sustainable development: Global Economy, Trade and Investment, Innovation; Environment and Energy; Employment; Women’s Empowerment; Development; and Health.
   4. On the sidelines of it, meets of Regional Groupings like: RIC (Russia-India-China); JIU (Japan-India-USA) and BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) happened. This shows India’s rising power in the World.
   5. India pledged to make Social Sector as its top priority and to resolve focus on infra esp digital infra.
   6. India and Japan also are partnering on Ahmedabad- Kobe Sister City partnership.
   7. India also stressed on the need for WTO reforms, Gender Equality, Anti Corruption and Ocean Pollution.
8. G20 2020 Summit is in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) (1st time in West Asia); Theme of “Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All”. 2021 Summit is in Italy and 2022 Summit will be in India.

Criticism of G20

• No permanent secretariat. No staff. Informal structure of G20. Topics change every year.
• Bias. Where small countries have to follow their big brothers to survive.
• Meetings are more showoff and less efficient. Failed to live upto expectations. No implementation at ground.
• Still recession and now CoVID. How to increase demand.
• USA - China issue is not resolved.
• Still Climate Change is not integrated.
• India, South Africa, and Indonesia have boycotted the “Osaka Track" on the “digital economy”, because
  1. It undermines “multilateral" principles of consensus-based decisions in global trade negotiations
  2. Denies "policy space" for digital-industrialisation in developing countries.

What is the news?

• At the conclusion of the G20 climate meet, India said that pledges by some countries to achieve net zero GHG emissions or ‘carbon neutrality’ by mid-century were inadequate, when considering the rights of developing countries to economic growth.
• Therefore and keeping in view, the legitimate need of developing countries to growth, India urged G20 countries to commit to bringing down per capita emissions to Global average by 2030.
• The G20 climate summit, which concluded, comes roughly about 100 days before the Conference of Parties (COP 26) is set to begin in Glasgow, Scotland (Prelims Pointers).

What is Net zero emission and how to achieve it?

• The net zero emissions refer to a situation where a country is able to remove at least as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it is emitting.
• This can be done by increasing forest cover or through technologies such as carbon capture.
• India’s position as the third largest greenhouse gas emitter but also with among the lowest per capita emissions means that it has always resisted a hard deadline — some countries have set their target years as 2050 or 2060 — to commit to a net-zero future. It is expected that the forthcoming COP 26 talks in Glasgow will see a commitment by the United States.
• Countries periodically submit the National Determined Contributions (NDC) that outline their plans towards capping emission.
• As per the NDCs submitted to the UNFCCC under Paris the Agreement, the pledge of the United States falls short of its fair share by 12 tonnes of CO2 per capita, of the U.K. by 14.1 tonnes, of China by 0.2 tonnes, and of India by 0.4 tonnes, according to Council on Energy Environment and Water, a New Delhi based think-tank.
• The fair share represents the reductions countries must achieve to ensure that the greenhouse gas levels are below that to prevent a 1.5 average temperature rise over the globe by the turn of the century.