JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The G20’s leadership is heading away from the Global South just as debt problems in poorer countries threaten to flare again, testing whether the group’s ambitions on debt relief will translate into action under a United States presidency.
South Africa on Sunday handed the G20 presidency over to the United States, completing a run of four major emerging economies, including Indonesia, India and Brazil, steering the group, years in which debt sustainability across developing nations became an increasingly prominent priority.
Debt across emerging economies has hit a record high, topping more than $100 trillion. In Africa, the topic is acute: with the International Monetary Fund warning that some 20 African countries were in or at high risk of debt distress.
“It’s important that we find solutions and not just tinker at the margins,” said Trevor Manuel, former South African finance minister and chair of the G20 Africa Expert Panel, which has been advising South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Senegal emerged as a flashpoint after billions of dollars in undisclosed borrowing prompted the IMF to freeze a $1.8 billion programme and triggered a sharp ratings downgrade.
Gabon has turned to liability-management deals to ease repayment pressure, including regional bond swaps worth about $1 billion. Mozambique has sought advisers for a restructuring, while Malawi’s debt levels are nearing 90% of GDP.
While the G20 launched the Common Framework in 2020, designed to pave the way for swift debt reworks for poorer nations after the COVID pandemic, progress in overhauling the international financial architecture has been slow.
G20 EFFORTS AND THE LIMITATIONS OF THE COMMON FRAMEWORK
South Africa tried to reinvigorate efforts during its year as G20 chair. The group’s finance ministers issued a stand-alone Ministerial Declaration on Debt Sustainability – the first since the pandemic – and committed to strengthening the Common Framework.
The framework has delivered debt treatments to four nations — Chad, Zambia, Ghana, and Ethiopia — since its launch.
Eric LeCompte, executive director of development group Jubilee USA Network, said this showed the limitations.
But he said the agenda of the United States, which will lead the G20 until late 2026, included addressing debt challenges, boosting economic growth and expanding job creation – offering some continuity.
LeCompte said the G20 Africa Engagement Framework, launched in October by its finance ministers to address hurdles to growth and development on the continent, marked an accomplishment.
It will deal with issues “from economic growth to debt and financing to development to anti-poverty initiatives to creating jobs across the continent,” said LeCompte.
SHIFTING PRIORITIES AND THE PATH TO REFORM
Vera Songwe, a member of the economic advisory council of President Ramaphosa, said there needed to be revisions to the debt sustainability framework, particularly those that improve financing conditions for poorer nations.
“When multilateral development banks use guarantees, they should not be penalised,” she said, underscoring calls for reforms of the Basel Framework to reduce borrowing costs.
The G20 had shown in the past it can make a difference – from post-2008 financial crisis stimulus packages to the COVID-era Debt Service Suspension Initiative – but it has limits, said Gilad Isaacs of South Africa’s Institute for Economic Justice.
“It doesn’t make policy. It’s got no legal standing,” he said. “We will have to find other spaces to drive those conversations and those changes”, including a proposed borrowers’ platform.
South Africa’s Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he would push forward the group’s recommendations from the past year, including the institutionalisation of debt relief efforts.
(Reporting by Colleen Goko, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, editing by Karin Strohecker and Ros Russell)
(Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Ukraine was grateful to the United States and to President Donald Trump for all U.S. efforts aimed at helping Kyiv.
“Ukraine is thankful to the United States, to every American heart and particularly to President Trump for the help which, starting with Javelin (missiles), saves Ukrainian lives,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram after Trump said Ukraine’s leaders had expressed “zero gratitude” for U.S. assistance.
Zelenskiy also expressed thanks to Europe and the G7 and G20 groupings of countries for their help, saying efforts to maintain this support were important.
“This is why we are working so carefully on every point, every step towards peace,” he wrote. “Everything has to be worked out correctly so that we can truly end this war and prevent war from happening again.”
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he would have a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss peace efforts in Ukraine, adding that he would also ask him to restart a deal for the safe passage of grains via the Black Sea.
NATO member Turkey has maintained cordial ties with both Kyiv and Moscow during the war, providing military help to Ukraine but refusing to join Western sanctions on Moscow. It has hosted three rounds of peace talks between the warring parties in Istanbul and offered to host a leaders’ meeting.
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday after a G20 summit in South Africa, Erdogan said the 2022 Black Sea grain deal, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, aimed to pave the path for a peaceful resolution of the war in Ukraine.
“We were able to succeed in this up to a certain point and it did not continue after. Now, during the discussions we will have tomorrow, I will again ask Mr. Putin about this. I think it would be very beneficial if we can start this process,” he said.
He added that he would also discuss how to “end the deaths” during the call, and that he would share with European and U.S. leaders and allies the outcomes of his conversation with Putin.
Erdogan did not comment directly on Washington’s 28-point draft plan to end the war. Kyiv and European allies have voiced alarm over what they see as major concessions to the aggressor Russia, as officials meet in Geneva to discuss it.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was inked in July 2022 to allow the safe export of nearly 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, despite the war.
Russia withdrew from the agreement in 2023, complaining that its own food and fertiliser exports faced serious obstacles. It has also complained of restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance as a barrier to shipments.
Last week, Erdogan hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Ankara, and on Sunday discussed the war in Ukraine with the leaders of France and Italy, according to his office.
He called for all diplomatic efforts to be utilised to reach a fair and lasting peace in Ukraine, saying the resumption of talks in Istanbul could help this effort.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Ros Russell)
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s trade minister Parks Tau said on Sunday that he expected negotiations with the U.S. over a trade deal would continue, despite differences between the two countries over this weekend’s Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg.
Host nation South Africa pushed through a G20 Leaders’ Declaration at the summit despite objections from the U.S., which boycotted the event.
“We’ve compartmentalised these issues and said the G20 is a separate process, … we anticipate that the trade discussions will continue,” Tau told reporters at the summit.
South Africa’s efforts to secure a trade agreement with the U.S. have been complicated by issues including Trump’s unfounded accusations of persecution of South Africa’s white minority.
Trump imposed a 30% tariff on imports from South Africa in August, which could cause tens of thousands of job losses at a time Africa’s biggest economy is barely growing.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo;Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Elaine Hardcastle)
HONG KONG (Reuters) -Chinese Premier Li Qiang said that China welcomes more Italian companies to enter the Chinese market and hopes Italy will provide a fair and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese to invest in the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Li’s comments came after a meeting with Italian President Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg.
(Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday a peace plan submitted by the U.S. to end the war between Ukraine and Russia was a good basis for work but needed to be revisited, taking the Europeans on board.
“There is a peace plan that has emerged, which incorporates ideas that are quite familiar, whether they were shared or not. It’s good in that it proposes peace and recognizes important elements on issues of sovereignty, security guarantees,” he told reporters at a meeting of the G20 in South Africa.
“But it’s a basis for work that needs to be revisited, as we did last summer, because this plan, first of all, wasn’t negotiated with the Europeans,” he said.
“Yet, it stipulates many things for the Europeans. Frozen assets are held by Europeans. The European integration of Ukraine is in the hands of the Europeans,” he said.
“Knowing what NATO is doing is in the hands of NATO members. So there are many things that can’t simply be an American proposal, that require broader consultation,” he added.
(Reporting by Sybille de La HamaideEditing by Mark Potter)
World leaders from the Group of 20 rich and developing economies broke with tradition and adopted a declaration at the start of their summit in South Africa on Saturday despite opposition from the United States, which is boycotting the two-day talks in a diplomatic rift with the host country.
Vincent Magwenya, the spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said a leaders’ declaration was adopted unanimously by the other members at the start of the talks in Johannesburg. Declarations are usually adopted at the end of G20 summits.
The 122-point declaration urged more global action on issues that specifically affect poor countries, like climate-related disasters and sovereign debt levels, and was promoted by the host country as a victory for the first G20 summit to be held in Africa.
The summit has been overshadowed by the U.S. boycott ordered by President Trump, and the U.S. had put pressure on South Africa not to adopt a leaders’ declaration in the absence of an American delegation, South African officials said.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the opening session of the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025.
Misper Apawu / AP
South Africa’s summit has an ambitious agenda to make progress on solving some of the long-standing problems that have afflicted the developing world, and leaders and top government officials came together at an exhibition center near the township of Soweto, which was once home to Nelson Mandela.
Many of South Africa’s priorities, especially a focus on climate change and confronting global inequality, have met resistance from the U.S. But as he opened the summit, Ramaphosa said that “consensus has emerged.”
Then, in comments to leaders that were apparently mistakenly broadcast during what was meant to be the start of closed-door discussions, Ramaphosa could be heard saying leaders would move “to adopt our declaration now.”
South Africa’s foreign minister walked over and whispered in Ramaphosa’s ear, and the South African leader said: “OK. I’m told that the cameras are still on. They should be off.”
While Ramaphosa’s spokesperson said the declaration was unanimous, Argentina said it did not endorse it. Argentine President Javier Milei also did not attend the summit in solidarity with ally Mr. Trump, and the country was represented by Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno.
An ambitious agenda
South Africa, which gets to set the agenda as the country holding the rotating G20 presidency, wants leaders to agree to more help for poor countries to recover from climate-related disasters, reduce their foreign debt burdens, transition to green energy sources and harness their own critical mineral wealth — all in an attempt to counter widening global inequality.
“We’ll see,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on whether the G20 could prioritize developing world countries and make meaningful reforms. “But I think South Africa has done its part in putting those things clearly upon the table.”
The summit will take place without the world’s biggest economy after Mr. Trump boycotted over his claims that South Africa is pursuing racist anti-white policies and persecuting its Afrikaner white minority. The Trump administration has also made clear its opposition to South Africa’s G20 agenda that focuses on climate change and inequality.
Moving on from the U.S. boycott
The months-long diplomatic rift between the U.S. and South Africa deepened in the buildup to the summit this weekend, but while Mr. Trump’s boycott threatened to undercut the agenda, some of the leaders were eager to move on.
“I do regret it,” French President Emmanuel Macron said of Mr. Trump’s absence, “but it should not block us. Our duty is to be present, engage and work all together because we have so many challenges.”
The G20 is actually a group of 21 members that comprises 19 nations, the European Union and the African Union.
The bloc was formed in 1999 as a bridge between rich and poor nations to confront global financial crises. While it often operates in the shadow of the Group of Seven richest democracies, G20 members together represent around 85% of the world’s economy, 75% of international trade and more than half the global population.
But it works on consensus rather than any binding resolutions, and that is often hard to come by with the different interests of members like the U.S., Russia, China, India, Japan, the Western European nations France, Germany and the U.K., and others like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
G20 summits traditionally end with a leaders’ declaration, which details any broad agreement reached by the members. South Africa said the U.S. was exerting pressure on it to tone down the final document to a unilateral statement from the host country.
Ramaphosa responded to that earlier this week by saying, “we will not be bullied.”
Even so, the direction of the G20 bloc is likely to change sharply given that the U.S. takes over the rotating presidency from South Africa at the end of this summit.
The only role the U.S. will play at this summit, the White House said, will be when a representative from the United States Embassy in South Africa attends the formal handover ceremony.
South Africa said it’s an insult for Ramaphosa to hand over to a junior diplomatic official.
“We have communicated to the American government that the president will not be handing over to a junior official of the embassy,” South African Foreign Ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told The Associated Press, adding he didn’t expect there would be a handover ceremony on Sunday.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The E3 countries, European Union leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, Japan and Canada will discuss Washington’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine on Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, sources familiar with the matter said.
The E3 is an informal security alliance of France, Britain and Germany.
(Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -Leaders of the Group of 20 top economies gathered for a U.S.-boycotted summit in South Africa on Saturday, seeking a deal on a draft declaration drawn up without U.S. input in a surprise move that a senior White House official described as “shameful”.
G20 envoys have agreed on a draft leaders’ declaration ahead of the weekend summit in Johannesburg, in which several of the top agenda items are about climate change. The draft was drawn up without seeking U.S. consensus, four sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
One of those sources confirmed late on Friday that the draft made references to climate change, despite objections from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who doubts the scientific consensus that warming is caused by human activities.
Trump has indicated that it will boycott the summit because of allegations, widely discredited, that the host country’s Black majority government persecutes its white minority.
The U.S. president has also rejected the host nation’s agenda of promoting solidarity and helping developing nations adapt to weather disasters, transition to clean energy and cut their excessive debt costs.
The boycott had put a dampener on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to trumpet South Africa’s role in promoting multilateral diplomacy, but some analysts suggested it might benefit it, if other members embrace the summit’s agenda and make headway on a substantive declaration.
It was not clear what concessions had to be made on the language to get everyone to agree. The United States had objected to any mention of climate or renewable energy in the discussion, and some other members are often reticent about it.
Three out of four of South Africa’s planned top agenda items – preparing for climate-induced weather disasters, financing the transition to green energy, and ensuring the rush for critical minerals benefits producers – are largely about climate change.
The fourth is about a more equitable system of borrowing for poor countries.
The United States will host the G20 in 2026 and Ramaphosa said he would have to hand over the rotating presidency to an “empty chair”. The South African presidency has rejected the White House’s offer to send the U.S. charge d’affaires for the G20 handover.
President Donald Trump will not be attending a summit of leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies and nor will the leaders of other group members Russia, China, Argentina and Mexico.
Why It Matters
The Group of 20, or G20, was founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis with the intention of promoting global financial stability and underpinning development in a forum that brings together the developed industrial economies and their leading developing partners.
Together, G20 members—19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union—represent about 85 percent of global gross domestic product, 75 percent of international trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population.
Trump’s absence, and that of other leaders, risks undermining the credibility of the G20 during the gathering in South Africa, its first on the African continent.
What To Know
Trump said that no U.S. officials would attend the summit, saying white South Africans were “being killed and slaughtered” in line with his discredited assertion of a genocide in the country, which South Africa denies.
Muddying the waters on U.S. involvement in the summit on November 22-23 in Johannesburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said on Thursday that the United States had signaled it might change its mind and send a delegation. The White House later dismissed the claim as “fake news” but acknowledged that a U.S. representative would be present at the handover of the presidency.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said David Greene, the embassy’s charge d’affaires, “is simply there to recognize that the United States will be the host of the G20.”
“They are receiving that send-off at the end of the event. They are not there to participate in official talks, despite what the South African president is falsely claiming,” Leavitt said.
In a post on X, Vincent Magwenya, the spokesperson for the South African presidency, said: “The President will not hand over to a Charge’ d’ Affaires.”
The position of U.S. ambassador to Pretoria has remained vacant since January.
Who Else Is Skipping the G20?
China’s President Xi Jinping will also not be attending, with Beijing sending Premier Li Qiang instead, China’s Foreign Ministry said. It is not unusual for Li to represent China at such events.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also not be going, the Kremlin has said. Instead, he has assigned Maxim Oreshkin, deputy head of presidential administration, to head the Russian delegation.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 on accusations of war crimes, specifically the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia during the conflict in Ukraine. South Africa is a member of the ICC and would therefore be obliged to arrest Putin.
The Russian leader has made several foreign visits since the warrant was issued, including to North Korea, Vietnam, China and the United States—for a summit with Trump in Alaska on August 15 this year—but none is a member of the ICC.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei is also not going to South Africa but will send his foreign minister, Pablo Quirno. Milie is a close ally to Trump and shares his aversion to multilateralism and efforts to prevent climate change, which South Africa has said it wants to discuss.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico will not be attending the G20 summit but will send a senior minister instead.
What People Are Saying
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said at a press conference on Thursday: “It cannot be that a country’s geographical location or income level or army determines who has a voice or who is spoken down to. And it basically means that should be no bullying of one nation by another nation. We are all equal.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing on Thursday: “I saw the South African President running his mouth a little bit against the United States and the president of the United States earlier today, and that language is not appreciated by the president or his team.”
Christopher Vandome, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, wrote in a report released on Thursday: “With the U.S. saying it will avoid the gathering and the global commitment to multilateralism being tested more broadly, the summit will not be a grand moment of solidarity or result in decisive action. Yet the issues championed by South Africa, including debt relief and climate finance, are important for the world.”
Who Is in the G20?
The G20’s membership includes: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus the European Union and the African Union.
No U.S. government officials will attend the Group of 20 summit this year in South Africa, President Trump said on Friday, repeating the claim that the country’s white farmers were being killed and abused.
Mr. Trump had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state, with Vice President JD Vance being scheduled to attend in the president’s place. However, a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said the vice president would no longer travel for the summit.
“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa. Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday. “No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue. I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!”
South Africa’s foreign ministry called Mr. Trump’s comments “regrettable” and said it is looking forward to hosting a “successful” summit.
“The characterisation of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical. Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution is not substantiated by fact,” it said in a statement.
The theme for this year’s summit in Johannesburg is “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.”
The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked. As it restricted the number of refugees admitted annually to the U.S. to 7,500, the administration indicated that most would be white South Africans who it claimed faced discrimination and violence at home.
The government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.
The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said he’s told Mr. Trump that information about the alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”
Nonetheless, the administration has kept up its criticisms of the South African government. Earlier this week, during an economic speech in Miami, Trump said South Africa should be thrown out of the Group of 20.
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts.
President Biden commemorated the 9/11 attacks at a military base in Alaska. He was returning from the G20 summit and a visit to Vietnam. Nancy Cordes reports.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is finally set to leave India on Tuesday, after technical issues with his aircraft left him stranded in New Delhi for days after the G20 summit.
“The technical issue with the plane has been resolved. The plane has been cleared to fly, and the Canadian delegation departed this afternoon,” Trudeau’s office said in a statement to POLITICO on Tuesday afternoon.
Trudeau was supposed to depart New Delhi on Sunday, after attending the G20 over the weekend. But a mechanical fault with his plane forced the prime minister and his delegation to extend their stay in India’s capital for an extra two days.
The plane, a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-150 Polaris, had experienced “technical difficulties” which were not “fixable overnight,” according to statements from Trudeau’s office. In a statement to BBC News, Canada’s Department of National Defense said a component would have to be replaced.
The defense department initially said a replacement plane was on its way to New Delhi to retrieve Trudeau, but the plane was later diverted to the U.K.
During the weekend summit, Trudeau faced some criticism from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who expressed “strong concerns” over protests organized by Sikh separatists in Canada.
President Biden is wrapping his G20 summit trip with a stop in Vietnam and a focus on China. Mr. Biden says he’s not trying to “contain” China, but wants to see them succeed “by the rules.” Meanwhile, new CBS News polling found that 57% of Americans believe the president is being too easy on China. CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe reports from Hanoi.
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President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.
“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”
The corridor, outlined at the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies, would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.
Sullivan said the network reflected Biden’s vision for “far reaching investments” that come from “effective American leadership” and a willingness to embrace other nations as partners. He said the enhanced infrastructure would boost economic growth, help bring countries in the Middle East together and establish that region as a hub for economic activity instead of as a “source of challenge, conflict or crisis” as it has been in recent history.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other leaders from around the world participated in the announcement.
“Enhancing connectivity with all regions has been a key priority for India,” said Modi, speaking through a translator. “We believe that connectivity is a means to not only increase mutual trade between different countries but also increase mutual trust.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, welcomes U.S. President Joe Biden for the first session of the G20 Summit, in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023.
Evan Vucci / AP
The rail and shipping corridor would help physically tie together a vast stretch of the globe, improving digital connectivity and enabling more trade among countries, including with energy products such as hydrogen. Although White House officials did not set a timeline for its completion, the corridor would provide a physical and ideological alternative to China’s own nation-spanning infrastructure program.
The White House gave no details on the project’s cost or financing, though Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman mentioned a figure of $20 billion during the announcement. It was unclear if that sum applied solely to the Saudi commitment.
Von der Leyen described the project as a “green and digital bridge across continents and civilizations.” She added that it includes cables to transmit electricity and data.
She also announced a “Trans-African Corridor” connecting the Angolan port of Lobito with landlocked areas of the continent: the Kananga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the copper-mining regions of Zambia.
Speaking of the African project, Biden called it a “game changing regional investment” and said “both of these are huge, huge steps forward.”
Amos Hochstein, Biden’s coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, laid out a rough timeline for the project over the next year.
In the next 60 days, working groups will put together a fuller plan and set timelines. The first phase will involve identifying the areas that need investment and where physical infrastructure can be connected between countries. Hochstein said the plans can be put into place over the next year so that the project can move onto setting up finances and construction.
Sullivan said the project started coming together after Biden visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2022, where he emphasized a need for greater regional economic integration.
In January, the White House started having conversations with regional partners about the concept. By spring, maps and written assessments of existing rail infrastructure in the Middle East were being drafted. Sullivan, and senior White House aides Hochstein and Brett McGurk, traveled to Saudi Arabia in May to meet with their Indian, Saudi and UAE counterparts.
All sides have worked since then to finalize details of the agreement announced Saturday.
The parties also brought Israel and Jordan into the project. Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, though the White House has been pushing them toward normalizing relations.
Sullivan said the transportation project is not seen as a “precursor” to a potential normalization deal but he characterized Israel’s inclusion as “significant.”
“The participants in this effort are focused on practical outcomes that deliver for their people,” Sullivan said. “And a corridor of this kind by dint of geography works best having Israel in as opposed to out and the countries participating prioritized that.”
Biden participated in both G20 sessions on Saturday. He highlighted plans to push for more investments to address climate change, such as his own domestic incentives to encourage the use of renewable energy. He also argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine is hurting many other nations, which have had to cope with greater food and energy costs as well as higher interest rate costs on their debt.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been a regular presence at international summits, including last year’s G20 in Indonesia, since Russia invaded his country more than 18 months ago, was not invited by Modi’s government to this year’s gathering.
Jon Finer, the White House principal deputy national security adviser, said the administration pushed for Zelenskyy’s inclusion at the summit.
“Ultimately, it is not our decision,” Finer said. “But you can expect that the United States and our other partners who are working with Ukraine so closely … We’ll make that case quite forcefully in the context of these conversations.”
The summit communique, a joint statement agreed to by all participants, addressed the war, among other issues. It included language underlining the principle that states cannot use force to change borders, disavowed the use nuclear weapons and called for a just peace based on the principles of the United Nations Charter. The communique also underscored that attacks on civilian infrastructure must end.
During the summit, Biden also discussed his request to Congress for additional funding for the World Bank that could generate more than $25 billion in new lending for economic development.
The White House more broadly is trying to strengthen the G20 as an international forum, while Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend.
Biden has said he was disappointed by Xi’s decision. Asked again about the Chinese leader’s absence, Biden said Saturday that the summit “is going well” though “it would be nice to have him here.”
President Biden is on his way to India for the G20 summit, where he will pitch the message that America’s economy is strong and seek to strengthen or navigate ties between the world’s largest economies. The president departed Washington after he tested negative for COVID-19 on Thursday.
It wasn’t certain that Mr. Biden would be able to make the trip, after first lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. The White House has said all week that the president has since taken multiple COVID-19 tests, all of which have been negative so far. As of Wednesday afternoon, he wasn’t experiencing any symptoms, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Mr. Biden will wear a mask indoors for 10 days following exposure, and will test “regularly,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday. The White House has not offered any contingency plans if the president tests positive en route to or in India.
In India, the president is expected to argue the U.S. economy — particularly its unemployment rate — is strong after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Biden is also expected to push for more international development in infrastructure in developing nations, to counter China’s influence in Africa and around the globe, as CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes reports. Chinese President Xi Jinping is not expected to attend the summit, and it’s not clear when Xi and Mr. Biden will meet next.
The president will also continue his efforts to rally other nations around Ukraine, even as Russia and China are G20 members. The summit comes after Russia launched deadly air strikes on Kyiv shortly before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Ukraine’s capital.
“These brutal Russian attacks underscore the importance of continuing to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against unprovoked, unjustified Russian aggression,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
While in Kyiv, Blinken announced another $1 billion aid package for Ukraine, something Mr. Biden is likely to highlight as well.
The G20 is an opportunity for Mr. Biden to meet one-on-one with other world leaders and manage country-to-country economic relations, as well as broader global goals. The U.S. is pushing for the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, key players in the Middle East.
The summit in India is also a political opportunity for Mr. Biden, whose approval ratings are struggling. The Biden campaign this week announced a new ad highlighting the president’s leadership on the global stage. The ad will run in battleground states on CBS’ “60 Minutes” while the president is at the G20 summit.
The G20, which consists of 19 nations and the European Union, accounts for approximately 85% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.
But the American economic story post-COVID-19 isn’t a glowing story for many American families, according to polling by CBS and others. The majority of Americans have a negative view of the state of the economy, largely thanks to inflation that’s risen faster than wages.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Top diplomats from the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations ended their contentious meeting in New Delhi on Thursday with no consensus on the Ukraine war, India’s foreign minister said, as discussions of the war and China’s widening global influence dominated much of the talks.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said there were “divergences” on the issue of the war in Ukraine “which we could not reconcile as various parties held differing views.”
“If we had a perfect meeting of minds on all issues, it would have been a collective statement,” Jaishankar said. He added that members agreed on most issues involving the concerns of less-developed nations, “like strengthening multilateralism, promoting food and energy security, climate change, gender issues and counterterrorism.”
China and Russia objected to two paragraphs taken from the previous G-20 declaration in Bali last year, according to a summary of Thursday’s meeting released by India. The paragraphs stated that the war in Ukraine was causing immense human suffering while exacerbating fragilities in the global economy, the need to uphold international law, and that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
Host India had appealed for all members of the fractured Group of 20 to reach consensus on issues of particular concern to poorer countries even if the broader East-West split over Ukraine could not be resolved. And while others, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, chose to highlight their roles in addressing world crises, the divide was palpable.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, center, speaks during the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi Thursday, March 2, 2023. (Olivier Douliery/Pool Photo via AP)
Last week, India was forced to issue a chair’s summary at the conclusion of a G-20 finance ministers’ meeting after Russia and China objected to a joint communique that retained language on the war in Ukraine drawn directly from last year’s G-20 leaders summit declaration in Indonesia.
Thursday’s talks began with a video address to the foreign ministers by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He urged them not to allow current tensions to destroy agreements that might be reached on food and energy security, climate change and debt.
“We are meeting at a time of deep global divisions,” Modi told the group, which included Blinken, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and their Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, saying their discussions would naturally be “affected by the geopolitical tensions of the day.”
“We all have our positions and our perspectives on how these tensions should be resolved,” he said. “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can.”
In a nod to fears that the increasingly bitter rift between the United States and its allies on one side and Russia and China on the other appears likely to widen further, Modi said that “multilateralism is in crisis today.”
An armed soldier stands guard during the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on March 2, 2023. (Photo by Arun SANKAR / AFP) (Photo by ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images)
ARUN SANKAR via Getty Images
He lamented that the two main goals of the post-World War II international order — preventing conflict and fostering cooperation — were elusive. “The experience of the last two years — financial crisis, pandemic, terrorism and wars — clearly shows that global governance has failed in both its mandates,” he said.
Jaishankar then addressed the group in person, telling them that they “must find common ground and provide direction.”
Blinken, according to remarks released by the State Department, spent much of his time describing U.S. efforts to bolster energy and food security. But he also told the ministers pointedly that Russia’s war with Ukraine could not go unchallenged.
“Unfortunately, this meeting has again been marred by Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine, deliberate campaign of destruction against civilian targets, and its attack on the core principles of the U.N. Charter,” he said.
“We must continue to call on Russia to end its war of aggression and withdraw from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability,” Blinken said. He noted that 141 countries had voted to condemn Russia at the United Nations on the one-year anniversary of the invasion.
Several members of the G-20, including India, China and South Africa, chose to abstain in that vote.
NEW DELHI, INDIA – MARCH 02: A general view of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi, India on March 02, 2023. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also attended the meeting. The G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting started with a moment of silence for those who lost their lives in the earthquakes in Turkiye. (Photo by Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Blinken and Lavrov talked briefly Thursday in the first high-level meeting in months between the two countries. U.S. officials said Blinken and Lavrov chatted for roughly 10 minutes on the sidelines of the G-20 conference.
In addition to attending the G-20 and seeing Modi and Jaishankar individually on Thursday, Blinken met separately with the foreign ministers of Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria and South Africa, and was also scheduled to hold talks with the foreign ministers of the Netherlands and Mexico.
As at most international events since last year, the split over the war in Ukraine and its impact on global energy and food security overshadowed the proceedings. But as the conflict drags on past 12 months, the divide has grown and now threatens to become a principal irritant in U.S.-China ties that were already on the rocks for other reasons.
A Chinese peace proposal for Ukraine that has drawn praise from Russia but dismissals from the West has done nothing to improve matters as U.S. officials have repeatedly accused China in recent days of considering the provision of weapons to Russia for use in the war.
Blinken said Wednesday that the Chinese plan rang hollow given its focus on “sovereignty” compared to its own recent actions.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on March 2, 2023.
OLIVIER DOULIERY via Getty Images
“China can’t have it both ways,” Blinken told reporters in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, before traveling to New Delhi. “It can’t be putting itself out as a force for peace in public, while in one way or another, it continues to fuel the flames of this fire that Vladimir Putin started.”
He also said there is “zero evidence” that Putin is genuinely prepared for diplomacy to end the war. “To the contrary, the evidence is all in the other direction,” he said.
China on Thursday hit back at those comments, accusing the U.S. of promoting war by supplying Ukraine with weapons and violating Chinese sovereignty with support for Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
“The U.S. says it wants peace, but it is waging wars around the world and inciting confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.
“While emphasizing the need to respect and maintain the international order, the U.S. has vigorously pursued illegal unilateral sanctions, putting domestic law above international law,” she said. “What the U.S. should do is to reflect on itself, stop confusing the public and making irresponsible remarks, earnestly shoulder its responsibilities, and do something to promote the de-escalation of the situation and peace talks.”
In the meantime, Moscow has been unrelenting in pushing its view that the West, led by the U.S., is trying to destroy Russia.
Ahead of the meeting, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed U.S. policies, saying that Lavrov and his delegation would use the G-20 to “focus on the attempts by the West to take revenge for the inevitable disappearance of the levers of dominance from its hands.”
Associated Press writers Sheikh Saaliq and Krutika Pathi contributed to this report.
LONDON, Feb 23 (IPS) – It’s been 25 years since the 1997 Asian financial crisis led to the creation of the G20 forum for finance ministers; and 15 years since this became a leader-level meeting following the global financial crisis. During this period, there has been significant shift in the global finance and economic landscape.
The ascent of several emerging economies has seen their contributions to the multilateral finance system that supports development rise significantly. Our new report collates those contributions over the last decade for the first time. It charts how China’s annual contributions to the UN and multilateral development banks rose twenty-fold from $0.1bn to $2.2bn.
But it also looks collectively at a group of 13 rising economies whose developmental contributions to multilateral finance institutions have risen five-fold to over $6bn over the last decade.
These contributions now make up an eighth of the total; and have seen the creation of two new multilateral finance institutions.
In this piece, we draw out key findings from our analysis, including the balance between funding existing and new institutions like the New Development Bank.
We consider whether continued growth in the 13 emerging actors could generate enough new funding for development over the next quarter century, and even create an institution as large at the World Bank’s fund for low-income countries (IDA).
Despite recent rhetoric around the return to a bipolar world order, this report is evidence that a wide group of countries are already playing major role in the global economic and development system, and will continue to do so in years to come
The transformational effect of economic growth on the multilateral system
In 1990 most people in the world lived in low-income countries; by 2020, this share had fallen dramatically to just seven percent of people. Meanwhile, the share of the global population living in middle-income countries swelled from 30 percent in 1990 to 73 percent in 2020.
Such a transformation implies a greater number of countries with the economic output to contribute internationally: widening and deepening participation in the multilateral system.
And this is just what we’ve seen. Over the decade to 2019, we find a group of emerging actors have significantly increased their contributions of development finance to multilateral organisations.
These include thirteen major economies outside the group of more established providers within the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which tend to receive more attention.
Ten of these emerging actors are G20 members, including the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—but others have grown quickly too: Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Collectively, we refer to these thirteen emerging actors as the “E13.”
Over the decade, the E13’s annual contributions of development finance to multilateral organisations (both core and funding earmarked for particular purposes) have increased almost five-fold, from $1.3bn in 2010 to $6.3bn in 2019 (up 377 percent). And their unrestricted core contributions have risen even more: increasing from $1.0bn to $5.2bn (up 410 percent).
Of these core contributions, we see that those to UN agencies more than quadrupled over the decade, steadily rising from $0.3bn to $1.2bn (up 330 percent). But by far the most striking development in E13 core contributions has come from the creation and capitalisation of two new multilateral organisations: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB).
The role of China
Although China has recently stepped back its bilateral finance efforts, its multilateral contributions increased steadily to 2019; and provided a third (34 percent) of the E13 total over the decade. Our colleagues have examined this in detail, including how China has the second highest aggregate voting share after the US in international finance institutions it supports.
Still, our analysis also highlights the importance of Russia, Brazil and India who each contributed over $3bn over the period and collectively contributed a further third of the total. While China’s multilateral contributions have been concentrated (59 percent) in new institutions it co-founded (see below), other providers have concentrated funding in traditional institutions: for example, Argentina, Chile and Mexico did not support the new institutions while for Saudi Arabia and UAE they were 17 percent and 21 percent respectively.
Creating new multilateral finance organisations
Over the ten-year period we examine, almost half of the E13’s core multilateral contributions were to the two new institutions (AIIB and NDB). After 2016, funding provided to these institutions made up over two-thirds of their contributions. Indeed, in 2016 the first financial contributions to AIIB and NDB causedE13 multilateral development finance to triple in a single year.
The E13 provided an additional $6.0bn of core funds for AIIB and NDB in 2016, without reducing their multilateral contributions through other channels.
Though annual contributions reduced to $3.1bn in 2019, AIIB and NDB still accounted for half of the E13’s multilateral development finance in that year, leaving their contributions at the end of the decade far ahead of the beginning.
Figure 1. E13 core and earmarked contributions of development finance to multilateral organisations (nominal USD billions)Source: Authors’ analysis
Emerging actors fund a sixth of the UN system
As well as higher absolute contributions (Figure 1), the E13’s role in the multilateral system has also grown in relative terms (Figure 2). As a share of the level of finance provided by the 29 high-income countries in the OECD DAC, the E13’s core multilateral contributions rose from 5 percent in 2010 to 12 percent in 2019—more than doubling their relative significance.
This was largely due to the effect of AIIB and NDB (clearly seen by the 2016 peak), but we also see that E13 core contributions to the UN system steadily and quickly rose as a share of the DAC level across the decade: from 5 percent in 2010 to 17 percent in 2019.
Figure 2. E13 core contributions of development finance to multilateral organisations as a share of contributions from DAC countriesSource: Authors’ analysis
A look to 2050—what role might the emerging economies play?
As the economies of the E13 continue to grow, what might this mean for their multilateral contributions in the future? Figure 3 shows how the share of economic output provided as development finance to multilateral organisations (either core or earmarked) tends to increase with higher levels of income per capita.
Though the relationship is steeper for the DAC than the E13, even the E13’s current trajectory implies a significant increase in future multilateral development finance from this group.
Ian Mitchell is Co-Director, Development Cooperation in Europe and Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Sam Hughes is a Research Assistant at the Center for Global Development.
BENGALURU, Feb 22 (Reuters) – India does not want the G20 to discuss additional sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine during New Delhi’s one-year presidency of the bloc, six senior Indian officials said on Wednesday, amid debate over how even to describe the conflict.
On the sidelines of a G20 gathering in India, financial leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations will meet on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion, to discuss measures against Russia, Japan’s finance minister said on Tuesday.
The officials, who are directly involved in this week’s G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs, said the economic impact of the conflict would be discussed but India did not want to consider additional actions against Russia.
“India is not keen to discuss or back any additional sanctions on Russia during the G20,” said one of the officials. “The existing sanctions on Russia have had a negative impact on the world.”
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Another official said sanctions were not a G20 issue. “G20 is an economic forum for discussing growth issues.”
Spokespeople for the Indian government and the finance and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, the first day of meetings to draft the G20 communique, officials struggled to find an acceptable word to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict, delegates of at least seven countries present in the meetings said.
India tried to form a consensus on the words by calling it a “crisis” or a “challenge” instead of a “war”, the officials said, but the discussions concluded without a decision.
These discussions have been rolled over to Thursday when U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be part of the meetings.
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has previously said the war has disproportionately hit poorer countries by raising prices of fuel and food.
India’s neighbours – Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh – have all sought loans from the International Monetary Fund in recent months to tide over economic troubles brought about by the pandemic and the war.
U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Tuesday that Washington and its allies planned in coming days to impose new sanctions and export controls that would target Russia’s purchase of dual-use goods like refrigerators and microwaves to secure semiconductors needed for its military.
The sanctions would also seek to do more to stem the trans-shipment of oil and other restricted goods through bordering countries.
In addition, Adeyemo said officials from a coalition of more than 30 countries would warn companies, financial institutions and individuals still doing business with Russia that they faced sanctions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not openly criticised Moscow for the invasion and instead called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the war. India has also sharply raised purchases of oil from Russia, its biggest supplier of defence hardware.
Jaishankar told Reuters partner ANI this week that India’s relationship with Russia had been “extraordinarily steady and it has been steady through all the turbulence in global politics”.
Additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie
DUISBURG, Germany, Jan 11 (IPS) – If our societies are to become resilient and sustainable, our priorities must change towards de-escalation, including in diplomacy and economy.
Putin’s war against Ukraine has not only damaged the international cooperative security architecture, it has permanently destroyed it. The Helsinki Act of 1975, the Charter of Paris of 1990 and the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 created a basis for security cooperation in Europe – even ‘a new era of democracy, peace and unity’, as the Charter of Paris was euphorically titled. At least, that is how the heads of state saw it in the decade after the end of the Cold War.
Today, the war in Ukraine casts a long shadow over European and global security. Cooperation and collaboration have been replaced by military confrontation. Economic cooperation has been shattered, fear of dependency in the energy sector has led to a turning point and the concept of the positive effect of economic interdependence (‘change through trade’) has proven to be a misperception not only in the case of Russia but also with respect to the relationship of the USA and its Asian and European allies against China.
On the contrary, the turn towards confrontational, essentially military-based defence policies can be felt all over the world. Global military spending is at an all-time high of over two trillion US dollars.
Given the budget announcements for the next few years, this sum will continue to rise rapidly in the future. Nuclear weapons have come back into focus. After Russia’s surprising attack, which was hardly considered possible, it is understandable that now – as a first reflex – arms are being upgraded, that economic dependencies are being reduced and, of course, there are concerns about critical infrastructure.
It is not only about traditional military threats. The boundaries between war and peace have become blurred. Hybrid warfare, the use of mercenaries, cyber warfare, destruction of critical infrastructure, undermining social cohesion with disinformation campaigns and election interference, sanctions and other measures of economic warfare have become the standard of international conflict.
De-escalation on three levels
Is there a way out of the constant political, economic and above all military escalation? Despite the apparent hopelessness of an end to the power struggle with Putin, despite the escalated situation in East Asia, despite the many now less noticed wars and conflicts – be it Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan or Mali – it is necessary to think about the possible end of these wars. This should happen in parallel on three levels: security, diplomacy and economy.
With all understanding for the hectic procurement of new weapons now being commissioned in the sign of the turn of the times, it should be noted that security policy is more than defence with weapons. Even if there is currently no path in sight for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine war, such a solution should still be considered.
Ultimately, this war can only be ended through agreements at the negotiating table. Even though Russia started the war in Ukraine in violation of international law and is obviously committing war crimes, in the long term there can be no peace in Europe without Russia and certainly not against Russia.
Respect for Russian security interests, however difficult this may be because of Russian aggression and Putin’s fantasy ideas of Russia, is a prerequisite for de-escalation and serious negotiations.
Geopolitics that maximises only one’s own advantages leads to a dangerous dead end: the clash is pre-programmed.
Many countries rely on a militarily supported geostrategic foreign policy. China’s assertive military, foreign and economic policies are rightly viewed with concern. But the EU also wants to become militarily autonomous.
The US is trying to find partners for its policy conducted in competition with China. Other powers such as Australia, Japan or India are also positioning themselves in rivalry to China.
Instead of focusing on geopolitics, it is necessary to focus on values (democracy, human rights) and binding rules (international law), even if Putin is blatantly violating international law and ‘democracy’ is a foreign word in China. It is necessary to change the narrative significantly.
‘The West’, which demands rule of law and democracy with rigour, has all too often emphasised these values and principles in a know-it-all manner – ‘the West against the rest’. Often enough, double standards were applied and these values were not observed by ‘the West’ itself, such as in the so-called war on terror and the war in Iraq.
If these principles and projects for democracy and against autocracy are to be convincing, then one must completely abandon the concept of ‘the West’ and try to cultivate partnership-based – and not Euro-centric (or ‘Westro-centric’) – relations with democratic countries. In short, geopolitics that maximises only one’s own advantages leads to a dangerous dead end: the clash is pre-programmed.
Is the sole answer of ‘the West’ to keep the upper hand in the geopolitical competition by military means? Economically, it makes sense to reduce dependencies and diversify supply chains. This cannot be done through radical decoupling, but must be done gradually.
Obviously, the shock of the pandemic, but above all Russia’s possibilities to blackmail by stopping energy deliveries, have changed the priorities a little. But by no means all priorities. At no time since the early 1990s has the military burden on global income been as high as it is today: well over two per cent with a trend towards further increases.
The need for timely disarmament
Should the new era (Zeitenwende) consist only of a return to old-fashioned patterns of the military-supported use of force? Arms control is not taking place at the moment. The United Nations and other arms control forums have been pushed to the side. But arms control and de-escalation must already now be considered, even if the Kremlin is still opposed to them and the Chinese leadership is hardly responsive to them at present.
The continuation of the current course leads globally to a situation that is becoming more dangerous than the confrontation in the heyday of the Cold War, since the world is now also seriously endangered by the climate crisis.
Almost all arms exports are accounted for by the G20 and 98 per cent of nuclear warheads are stored in their arsenals.
Although the risks of climate change and armament are well known, there is currently no reversal of this trend in sight. The two crises are heading towards a seemingly unavoidable catastrophe. After the old-world order – with a halfway functioning multilateralism, compromises and give-and-take – was replaced by nationalist aspirations, which then led to a breach of international law in the case of Russia, by an emphasis on nuclear weapons and by the pursuit of supposed self-interest, the goals of the climate agreements are being missed and arms control treaties are being ground down.
Geopolitically ambitious powers such as China, India, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa or Saudi Arabia must be integrated into arms control efforts. Almost ‘naturally’, the G20 summits offer themselves as a forum for this.
The G20 initially focused their talks primarily on macroeconomic issues, but have since also negotiated on sustainable development, energy, the environment and climate change – but not seriously on global security policy.
However, the G20 member countries are responsible for 82 per cent of global military spending. Almost all arms exports are accounted for by the G20 and 98 per cent of nuclear warheads are stored in their arsenals. Today’s military-based arms efforts are concentrated in the G20.
Since the members of this exclusive G20 club are also the main perpetrators of climate change, they bear the main responsibility for the two current catastrophic trends.
Moreover, there are links between climate and arms policy that are most clearly reflected in the wars and violent conflicts of the last decades, the movements of refugees, migrant flows and corresponding counter-reactions.
If our societies are to become more resilient and more ecologically sustainable, then priorities must be changed, and then such a large share of resources cannot be permanently poured into the military – without any prospect of de-escalation. Our current shift must therefore contain more than the present rearmament.
Since the members of this exclusive G20 club are also the main perpetrators of climate change, they bear the main responsibility for the two current catastrophic trends. So, it is time to remind them of their responsibility and urge them to turn back. Perhaps the fact that India is chairing the G20 this year can be used to put security policy prominently on the forum’s agenda.
After all, India has refused to adopt Western sanctions against Russia, citing its own interests. In doing so, the government in Delhi – similar to some other countries in the G20 group (Brazil, South Africa and Turkey) – has kept an open door for potential talks. In order to enable a turning point towards a global security order and cooperation in the climate crisis, more is needed than the current clear military positioning of ‘the West’ in confrontation with Russia.
It is to be hoped that the leading powers of the Global South will strive for a rules-based, multilateral world order within the framework of the G20 talks. That there are possibilities for a security order that looks beyond Europe, as hinted at by Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar, when he confidently stated: ‘Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s.’
Herbert Wulf, Director of the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) from its foundation in 1994 until 2001, is currently a Senior Fellow at BICC and an Adjunct Senior Researcher at the Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg/Essen where he was previously a Deputy Director.
Source: Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin
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