Consider Land, water, and energy jointly in policies
Just in time for the meeting of the G20 Agricultural Ministers on 22 January 2017 in Berlin the T20 Task Force “Towards Ending Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture” published its Policy Brief on Key Policy Actions for Sustainable Land and Water Use to Serve People.
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Preparing a global „Energiewende“
The 2017 G20 summit takes place in the country that has won international recognition for its “Energiewende” – a fundamental transformation of its energy system. This provides an important window of opportunity for strengthening the G20 agenda on sustainable energy. The world’s overall energy supply is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, which undermines climate protection objectives, and the resilience of financial markets. With falling costs of renewable energies and global efforts to combat climate change, investments in fossil fuels and nuclear energy bear significant risks for stranded assets and thus the long-term stability of financial markets.
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Priorities for the Hamburg summit
There are seven months left until the 2017 G20 Summit takes place in Hamburg. With the German Government having released its priorities as the incoming G20 president in December 2016, what can we realistically now hope for in Hamburg? One way to think about this question is to cast our minds forward to July 9, the day after the Hamburg Summit, and consider whether the announced priorities are liable to have helped or hindered G20 negotiations in 2017. However, this raises a further question – what sort of achievements or progress should we be looking for to determine if the Hamburg Summit is a success?
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No free dumping ground for carbon waste
Energy has a big part in at least four of the announced priorities of Germany’s G20 presidency; trade and investment, climate and energy, 2030 Agenda, and the proposed partnership with Africa. This blog post discusses how the summit process can maximise the G20’s effectiveness in the field of energy.
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Support the creditability of the WTO
The German G20 presidency will take place in difficult economic times. The outlook for the world economy remains weak: The IMF predicts in its World Economic Outlook that global growth will slow to 3.1 percent in 2016 and rise slowly in 2017. Trade growth has also slowed to annually 3 percent. Only half the growth rate before the financial crisis. The benefits of free trade and globalization are increasingly being questioned. Rising inequalities, and challenges of migration have led to populist and nationalist tendencies in many countries. The G20 summit in Hamburg in July 2017 needs to give a clear signal in favor of globalization and free trade.
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