Taking place on Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, under the theme “Building a just world and a sustainable planet”, the G20 Summit concentrated on the issues of the developing countries known as the Global South – hunger, poverty, global governance reform, justice in climate finance, and energy transition.

Priorities of the Global South

The G20 Summit officially launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty (GAAHP), an initiative proposed by Brazil during its G20 presidency, hoping to put the fight against poverty at the center of discussions by multilateral institutions.

The establishment of the Alliance, with the support of 81 countries and global institutions, including the European Union, the African Union, development banks, and large charitable funds like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, can be considered an important milestone in accelerating hunger and poverty eradication worldwide from now until 2030.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva said the launch of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty is the central objective of the Brazilian G20 Presidency. “This will be our greatest legacy. It is not just about doing justice. This is an essential condition for building more prosperous societies and a world of peace.”

During the Summit, Brazil put climate change high on the agenda, with a commitment to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and approval of the first multilateral document on the bio-economy. Brazil also presented a roadmap for multilateral development banks to become more effective and give African countries a voice in debt negotiations.

G20 members approved a strategy proposed by Brazil to promote cooperation in “Open Innovation” to combat imbalance in science and technology production, and established a Working Group on Women’s Empowerment and a Working Group on Artificial Intelligence Governance.

Brazil is the principal backer, along with China and South Africa, of a proposed tax on the super-rich that might be one of the main priorities at next year’s G20 Summit in South Africa.

“International cooperation on taxation is very important in minimizing global inequalities,” President Lula da Silva said.

Studies by the G20 financial group show that an annual tax of 2% on the wealth of super-rich individuals could raise up to 250 billion USD a year to tackle social and environmental challenges, he noted.

No major commitment on climate and energy

Guilherme Casaroes, Professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Research Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, said Brazil wisely chose the main topics for this year’s Summit. The selected topics – poverty, climate, and energy – are "neutral" enough to gain a wide consensus among G20 members. This caution however, prevented the Rio Summit from making a breakthrough in two highly anticipated topics – climate finance and energy transition.

Some people expected the G20 Summit, which took place at the same time as the 29th Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, to achieve stronger and clearer commitments on financial contributions to climate change response or establish a roadmap to completely eliminate fossil fuels, thereby boosting the deadlocked negotiations at COP29.

In its final statement, however, the G20 simply said that necessary financing will come from "all resources", without specifying where and how it would be allocated. Although it called for a gradual reduction of fossil fuel subsidies, the G20 did not mention ending the use of fossil fuels. Brazil failed to gain enough support for its proposal that developed countries commit to achieving carbon neutrality by 2040 or 2045 instead of 2050, or its proposal to establish a UN Climate Change Council.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it’s regrettable that the G20 Summit failed to result in decisive actions because the G20 countries produce 80% of global emissions and so they should be the pioneers.

“I ask you to instruct your ministers and negotiators to make sure they agree on a new ambitious climate finance goal this year. Failure is not an option. It might compromise the ambition in the preparation of the new national climate action plans, with potential devastating impacts as irreversible tipping points are getting closer,” said Guterres.

Another issue that made this year's G20 Summit only partially successful is the deep geopolitical divide regarding the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

As at the two previous summits – in Indonesia in 2022 and in India in 2023 – the G20 countries argued fiercely only to arrive at a weak compromise in the final statement.