World leaders have voiced disappointment at the lack
of progress made on climate policies at the G-20.
It’s the body that should be leading Covid recovery, economic recovery,
but it’s also hopelessly divided between its internal membership.
That, to me, makes it a disappointing G20.
Despite its early promise, the G-20 has often been criticized for failing
to tackle the most pressing global issues of our time.
But how and why did the bloc come into existence?
What challenges has it faced?
And are the criticisms really warranted?
The G-20, or Group of Twenty,
is an informal meeting of twenty of the world’s largest economies.
It was born out of the G-7, or Group of Seven, in 1999,
with one main purpose: global financial stability.
At the time, the world was in the process of recovering from a financial crisis,
which originated in Asia in 1997 and spread across international stock markets.
The finance ministers and central bank governors for the G-7 met in Washington D.C.
following the crisis and realized they couldn’t sufficiently address vulnerabilities
in the global financial system without expanding the number of economies sitting around the table.
So, they proposed a new forum, which would eventually include
the G-7 countries and 13 other “systemically significant economies.”
The forum was initially confined to just the finance ministers and
central bank governors of the 20 members.
Guest countries, as well as international and regional organizations,
would also be invited to attend.
But heads of state didn’t get involved until nearly a decade later
when another, bigger financial crisis came along.
The G-20 leaders meeting was the result of an accident.
The big accident was the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.
Kishore Mahbubani was the president of the United Nations Security Council in the early 2000s.
He explained to me how the G-20 meetings expanded in scope.
The United States realized that it was in its interests, to have a leaders meeting,
to try and find a solution to the global financial crisis.
And I will say, that was the finest moment of the G-20 leaders meeting,
especially the second leaders meeting in London.
They came up with a global stimulus package that essentially saved the world,
and it saved the world because everybody participated in it.
Even China, which had not been very badly affected,
was prepared to commit $50 billion, for a $1 trillion global stimulus package.
Collectively, the G-20 bloc makes up over 80 percent of
global gross domestic product and 75 percent of international trade.
The G-7 is a sunset organization, and the G-20 is a sunrise organization.
When the G-7 leaders meet, they claim to speak on behalf of the world.
But they represent less than 10% of the world's population.
Whereas I think the G-20 represents 60% of the world's population.
While the G-20 may indeed be a more representative body than the G-7,
it doesn’t mean impactful solutions, like the global stimulus package
that emerged out of the 2009 summit, come easily.
In fact, much of the heavy lifting is done in the lead-up to these meetings.
The G-20 presidency rotates each year among its members.
In the absence of a permanent secretariat, a “troika,” which consists of the current,
previous, and incoming presidencies, shapes the agenda, while ensuring the
continuity of tasks and goals from previous years.
This work is divided into two streams: a finance track and the Sherpa track.
All agenda items under the finance track are handled by the members’
finance ministers and central bank governors.
They work in conjunction with the G-20 leaders’ personal representatives,
known as “sherpas,” whose remit includes a wider spectrum of issues.
Both tracks feature a series of ministerial meetings, working groups,
conferences and engagements with non-governmental organizations.
Francesco Mancini is a non-resident senior adviser at the International Peace Institute
and a professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
The G-20s are actually quite informal, if you compare them to the traditional
very stiff kind of diplomatic chambers of the United Nations.
It was born, the G-20, as a tool to address macroeconomics and financial issues.
But today, the agenda is much broader.
They discuss unemployment, corruption, climate change, digital technology, you name it.
We all remember the summits, because that's
the moment when the presidents and the prime ministers meet.
But in reality, there has been already many meetings through the year.
At the end, there is generally a communique, a statement that is built on consensus.
The key word, here, is consensus. So, how often is that achieved?
Unfortunately, the United States, lost interest in the G-20.
In fact, a former director of the National Intelligence Council told me
very frankly, he said: Kishore, I know why a small state like Singapore likes multilateral
institutions, because it enhances your ability to influence other countries.
Whereas for a great power like the United States, multilateral institutions, constrain them.
If, for example, we think about President Trump, where he actually withdrew from the Paris
Agreement, which triggered the G-20 to actually reinforce their commitment to the Paris Agreement.
Normal language like international cooperation and trade were not used in the communique,
because the U.S. was against it. I think since then, things got a little better.
But reality is that the tariffs that Trump put
in place are still there. So, the division is still there.
In 2014, Russia was suspended from what was then the G-8,
following the annexation of Crimea,13 before it decided to permanently leave in 2017.
And then in 2022, there were calls for it to be
excluded from the G-20 meetings after its invasion of Ukraine.
And that's an absolute mistake. Because at the end of the day,
Russia is a key player in the world, as are all other great powers.
And it's better to have them all in one room talking to one another.
And there’s not just internal divisions within the G-20.
Protests have been a regular feature at the summits - a clear indication of public
discontent regarding the bloc’s ability to address key global problems, or lack thereof.
In 2018, market research firm YouGov polled inhabitants of five G-20 member
countries about their perception of the bloc’s problem-solving abilities.
The results were not encouraging.
Those residing in Argentina, which held the G-20 presidency that year,
had the most positive perceptions of the forum, followed by Russia.
It was a different picture in the U.K., Germany and the U.S.,
where only a third of those polled viewed the G-20 favorably.
There are also questions over the G-20’s exclusivity.
A report as far back as 2011 by the Danish Institute for International Studies termed the
G-20’s “institutionalized practice” of inviting representatives from under-represented regions
as “concession at the margins,” while also criticizing its move of “permanently excluding
173 countries” as a fact that “undercuts its claim to representational legitimacy.”
11 years on, those 173 countries continue to be excluded from the G20’s membership. So,
is there hope for a more inclusive future?
Why should like 10% of the world's population hold 40% of the seats
of G20? That's not right. It just reflects the fact that they are economically more powerful.
But in the world of tomorrow, let's say if you exclude a country like Nigeria,
which by current projections, will have a larger population than China by the year 2100,
then you are not having a representative body that represents the world of things.
So, I think there needs to be constant reshuffling of the membership of the
G20 to reflect not yesterday's powers, but tomorrow's powers.
The most representative body in the world is the General Assembly of the United Nations,
for every country is present with one vote.
But we also know that it's very hard for this body to be effective.
So, I wouldn't go for a G-50, I think will be a big challenge to make any concrete decision.
While the informal nature of the G-20 means there are no binding resolutions or sanctions,
advocates say the forum is invaluable in fostering conversations between leaders.
We have to remember that there is a lot of bilateral
activities happening during these meetings.
In the past, we might remember where
Trump and Xi Jinping agreed in not implementing tariffs for that time,
or where President Biden and Macron of France had the opportunity to meet again,
after the U.K. and U.S. and Australia,
kicking out France, from a submarine nuclear agreement with Australia.
The G-20 leaders’ meetings themselves often don't accomplish very much.
But when you have bilateral meetings on the side, they can be incredibly important.
Even if there's no consensus among the leaders, that doesn't mean that meeting has failed,
because there may actually have been a better understanding that is developed.