G20 Environment Ministers’ Meeting | Naples, 22 July 2021

The G20 Environment Ministers' Meeting ended on 22 July in Naples with the approval of an important joint communiqué, through which the Ministers committed to step up efforts to address the interconnected challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, pollution, and health. They emphasised the importance of achieving a just and equitable transition to sustainable economies, leaving no one behind and taking into account the varying capabilities and levels of development of different countries. The latter wording was a creative attempt to avoid mentioning the CBDR (‘common but differentiated responsibilities’) principle, a long-standing request of the Global South, unacceptable to Global North members.

The G20 called for action on protecting, conserving, sustainably managing and restoring degraded lands, water, oceans and seas; renewing efforts to eliminate marine plastic litter and promoting the efficient and circular use of resources.

A major highlight of the document are the references to the circular economy, one of the priorities of the Italian Presidency and of the EU as a whole. The communiqué included a “call for action on sustainable and circular resource use” and specific mention of “sustainable and circular cities”. It was particularly key for the EU to have agreed on a shared circular economy vision and to have mandated the G20 Resource Efficiency Dialogue to do more work on this issue.

Less conclusive was the commitment to tackle plastic pollution and waste through a new agreement on plastics, and the section dedicated to biodiversity where the “30 by 30” target was not emphasised. No more progress was made on agreeing the concept of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), however G20 members agreed on the importance of coming to a shared understanding and thus a workshop was held later in the year to further explore the concept.

Also of special interest was the incorporation of similar language to that adopted in the G7 meeting regarding marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean, and a call to increase financial flows for sustainable development that protects nature.

The G20 closed the communiqué encouraging the provision of financial, technological and capacity building support to developing countries, especially to least developed countries, making the best use of existing governance frameworks and working to identify innovative solutions.

The communiqué is available here.

G20 Leaders’ Summit | Rome, 30-31 October 2021

On 30 and 31 October 2021, G20 leaders met for a two-day summit hosted by the Italian G20 presidency in Rome, to address today’s most pressing global challenges and to converge upon common efforts to better recover from the COVID-19 crisis and enable sustainable and inclusive growth in G20 countries and across the world.

As regards environmental issues considered at the Summit, the G20 Rome Leaders' Declaration:

• emphasised the importance of the One Health approach and the need to address risks emerging from the human-animal-environment interface, particularly zoonotic diseases;
• committed to ‘strengthen actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030’ and called on ‘CBD Parties to adopt an ambitious, balanced, practical, effective, robust and transformative post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15 in Kunming’;
• referred to the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature and the 30by30 target (at least 30 % of global land and at least 30 % of the global ocean and seas conserved or protected by 2030), stating that they will ‘help to make progress towards this objective in accordance with national circumstances’;
• underlined the ‘many synergies in financial flows for climate, biodiversity and ecosystems’ and committed to strengthening those synergies so as to maximize benefits;
• committed to scale up and encourage the implementation of Nature-based Solutions or Ecosystem-based Approaches;
• recognized that ‘water resources are globally at risk due to anthropogenic pressure’ and confirmed the role of the G20 Dialogue on Water adopted in 2020 under the Saudi Presidency in sharing best practices;
• highlighted the importance of making progress ‘as soon as possible’ on Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, repeated the Environment Ministers’ language on marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean, and reaffirmed their commitment to address marine litter by developing ‘a new global agreement or instrument’;
• committed to increase resource efficiency and enhance efforts towards achieving sustainable consumption and production patterns and management and reduction of emissions, including through the adoption of circular economy approaches (though it did not mention the ‘G20 vision’ set out by the Environment Ministers);
• recognised the importance of gradually expanding the Roadmap of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group to ‘include additional issues, such as biodiversity and nature’ (even if subject to a ‘mutual agreement by G20 members in the coming years’).
• Urged other countries to join forces with the G20 to reach the aspirational goal of planting 1 trillion trees by 2030, with the involvement of the private sector and civil society.

Read the G20 Rome Leaders' Declaration.