5 things Brazil wants from the G20 summit at Rio

The stage is set for Brazil to host the highly anticipated G20 summit, as leaders from around the world arrive at Rio de Janeiro for the international event. While the meeting will be overshadowed by two ongoing wars and a looming presidency of Donald Trump in the White House, Brazil has its own agenda which it would like to see fulfilled at the summit.

Brazil succeeded India in assuming the presidency of the Group of 20 nations. After the summit, which is scheduled to be held on November 18-19, the country will pass the baton to South Africa, which will host the 20th edition of the international meet next year.

Ahead of the summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told CMG his main agenda from the event. This included launching a global alliance to combat hunger and poverty, addressing energy transition and climate challenges, empowering women and revisiting the Bretton Woods system. “I believe it will be a learning opportunity for all of us,” he remarked.

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So, here’s a look at the five things Brazil will be hoping to get out of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro:

5 things that top Brazil’s list of agenda from the G20

1. Implementing a global tax on billionaires

During the summit, the Brazilian president will try to progress the plans to tax the world’s richest billionaires, who often find loopholes to avoid being taxed. At the July meeting of G20 finance ministers in Rio, some of the world’s wealthiest nations agreed to start a “dialogue on fair and progressive taxation, including of ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” despite fierce resistance from the United States and within Germany’s now collapsed coalition government.

Ahead of the summit, Lula reiterated the calls for taxing the “super-rich” emphasising that neoliberalism has worsened equality. “Neoliberalism has worsened the economic and political inequality that is currently plaguing democracies,” Lula said at the close of a pre-summit event bringing together NGOs, minority groups and climate activists, AFP reported.

“To reach the hearts of citizens, governments need to break with the increasingly dissonant gap between the voice of the markets and the voice of the streets,” he added, insisting that tax regulations for the billionaires are important. Brazil believes that the money raised from billionaires would help boost other pressing global issues.

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2. Alliance to fight hunger

Earlier this month, President Lula also expressed hopes that the upcoming 19th G20 Summit can reach an agreement on hunger, inequality and poverty, urging a pivot away from rampant military spending.

“Brazil doesn’t want war. Brazil wants peace. Last year, the world spent 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars on weapons. If we spent that money on education and food, would there still be 733 million people living in hunger? Would so many children die from hunger? These are my questions. Therefore, we hope the G20 Rio de Janeiro summit can reach a pact on hunger, inequality and poverty,” Lula said in an interview with China Central Television

In light of this, the South American nation will be proposing the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, discussed at the G20 Social, to unite countries in sustainable food production, combating inequalities. The initiative will aim to unite the member nations in coordinating actions that range from expanding the production of healthy food to supporting families and sustainable agriculture.

3. Strengthen calls for UN reforms

At the closing ceremony of the G20 Social Brazil led the global call for inclusion, democracy and governance reforms. Mazé Morais, a civil society representative, presented a Declaration, whose content will also be pushed in the Leader’s summit.

The declaration called for urgent reforms to “ensure that institutions like the UN and other multilateral bodies reflect today’s global realities.” More specifically, Brazil called for the reformulation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which was seen as “fundamental to increasing global representativity and promoting fairer and more effective solutions.”

4. Push for global AI rules

The Brazilian president has added the regulations regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence to his list of priorities. With this in mind, Brazil intends to craft a governance framework that includes the interests of Global South nations and forces AI superpowers China and the US to the table.

“The big challenge is reducing inequalities — because there is already inequality today,” Luciana Santos, Brazil’s minister of science and technology, told Bloomberg, earlier this week. “We want to reduce this within countries and to do this we need to encourage the development of AI, especially for countries in the Global South,” he added.

Lula’s priority is making the G20 nation reach an agreement on baseline standards of governance that give a wide range of countries a say in who gains access to AI and its benefits. The South American nation is also planning to press members to mitigate potential workforce disruption from AI and the creation of regulations that safeguard intellectual property.

5. Tackling the issue of climate change

After diplomats failed to reach a solid consensus on climate change, halfway through the COP29 Summit in Azerbaijan, the G20 Summit is seen as an alternative to reach some sort of an agreement. A day before the G20 summit, sources told Reuters that 20 major economies reached a “fragile consensus” on climate finance, which was eluded to during the Azerbaijan talks.

It is pertinent to note that the G20 nation accounts for a whopping 85 per cent of the world’s economy and is the largest contributor to multilateral development banks that are helping to steer climate finances.

“The spotlight is naturally on the G20. They account for 80 per cent of global emissions,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. He expressed concern about the state of the COP29 talks in Baku and called on G20 leaders to do more to fight climate change. With the preservation of the Amazon in mind, Brazil will be planning to push the initiative as well.

As the world leaders come under one roof to discuss the challenges that have engulfed the world. It will be interesting to see how the G20 nations would deal with the new challenges.

With inputs from agencies.