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The US G20 Presidency Could Take Trump's Pro-Billionaire Agenda Global
There’s a real risk that the US presidency could advance an economic agenda that prioritizes the interests of the wealthy while sidelining efforts to tackle inequality, strengthen fair taxation, and resolve deepening debt crises worldwide.
Apr 12, 2026
In just a year, the wealth of the 10 richest US billionaires increased by $698 billion dollars, while low-wage workers struggled as the Trump administration pushed an inequality-fueling agenda. Now, concerns are growing that the same policy choices—those driving a massive transfer of wealth to the richest—could be projected onto the global stage.
The United States recently assumed the presidency of the G20—a major platform for heads of state and governments to address global economic issues. The presidency is a role that carries significant influence over global economic priorities. There’s a real risk that the US presidency could advance an economic agenda that prioritizes the interests of the wealthy while sidelining efforts to tackle inequality, strengthen fair taxation, and resolve deepening debt crises worldwide.
Instead of focusing the G20 on poverty alleviation, reducing inequality, or dealing with a pending global economic crisis, the US government focus will center on removing regulatory burdens, unlocking energy supply chains, and pioneering new technologies and innovation. This marks a sharp departure from the 2025 theme of “Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability” and signals a shift toward exporting the Trump administration’s domestic agenda to the global stage.
This all comes at a time when inequality is rising across most countries, and many low- and middle-income nations face mounting debt and stagnant growth.
As the US government so blatantly prioritizes wealthy interests, it is a critical moment for civil society to step forward—organizing and advancing an agenda that breaks decisively from the G20’s all-too-often emphasis on preserving the status quo.
US officials are pitching a “back to the basics” approach—which in reality is a sidelining of issues such as inequality, poverty, labor, climate, and gender. It is also widely anticipated that the Trump administration will restrict avenues for civil society participation.
Current plans suggest a focus on the leaders’ summit and financial track; a reduction in working groups; and formal engagement limited to business stakeholders, excluding civil society organizations, women’s groups, labor unions, and youth representatives. Even acknowledging that past G20 efforts on sustainable development have been uneven, this “back to the basics” approach risks abandoning critical priorities altogether.
Recent G20 presidencies led by Brazil and South Africa demonstrated a different trajectory, placing inequality and debt at the center of global discussions. South Africa’s 2025 presidency elevated the urgency of inequality by commissioning the first-ever G20 report on the issue. Led by professor Joseph Stiglitz, the report described a global “inequality emergency” and proposed the creation of an International Panel on Inequality to guide coordinated action.
Against this backdrop, the Trump administration’s domestic policies, including the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), represent one of the largest upward transfers of wealth in decades, making it unlikely that current US leadership will champion similar efforts internationally.
Progress on global tax cooperation is also under threat. Brazil’s 2024 presidency achieved a breakthrough agreement to cooperate on taxing high-net-worth individuals. While extreme wealth concentration has increased in recent years, research shows billionaires pay effective tax rates close to 0.3% of their wealth—well below what average workers contribute.
Yet in 2025, the Trump administration has already taken actions that undermine these efforts, including withdrawing from United Nations tax negotiations, pressuring other advanced economies to shield US corporations from global tax agreements, and opposing measures such as digital services and carbon taxes.
Climate action presents another area of concern. G20 countries are responsible for approximately 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet many continue to fall short of their commitments. The US administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rollback of domestic climate policies reflect a broader retreat from climate leadership.
The Trump administration’s emphasis on expanding energy supply chains raises the possibility that fossil fuel development could be prioritized over clean energy transitions, particularly if multilateral development banks are encouraged to increase investments in oil and gas projects.
Taken together, these signals suggest that the 2026 US G20 presidency could mark a significant retreat. Rather than building on recent efforts to address inequality, debt, and climate change, it may instead shift the forum toward a narrower agenda that prioritizes elite and corporate interests.
The direction ultimately taken will have far-reaching consequences, not only for the credibility of the G20 but for the future of global economic cooperation. As the US government so blatantly prioritizes wealthy interests, it is a critical moment for civil society to step forward—organizing and advancing an agenda that breaks decisively from the G20’s all-too-often emphasis on preserving the status quo.
Now is the time for people, institutions, and movements to unite and champion bold new forms of multilateral cooperation that serve billions, not billionaires.
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Why We Must Replace the Global Economic System Built by the 1%
This is not rocket science and the global majority, the 99%, have the answers and are already putting them into practice.
Nov 22, 2025
This year’s G20 Leaders Summit is taking place in Johannesburg, a short distance from Constitution Hill, a former prison complex that once held Nelson Mandela and other South African democracy fighters. As the world’s most powerful leaders meet behind closed doors, this former apartheid prison turned museum will publicly write another page in the history of global economic emancipation.
Movements, workers, activists, thinkers, creatives, artists, and communities from across South Africa, Africa, Asia, and Latin America are gathering for a three-day People’s Summit for Economic Justice — a counter to the G20 — to build the power of the 99 percent. The Constitution Hill’s Old Fort, Women’s Jail, and former men’s prison cells are hosting radical conversations, art, music, and action for the Global Majority to tell their own story, share struggles and solutions, and show that another world isn’t just possible — it’s already being built by communities writing their own future.
The G20 member countries account for over 85 percent of the global GDP. Over this forum’s two and half decades of existence, the G20 has failed to use its combined economic weight to steer global financial, trade, development, and fiscal policies to address global economic and environmental challenges. Instead, it has served the interest of the 1 percent: elites, corporations, and billionaires.
As a result, a handful of billionaires and super rich people globally have amassed far more wealth than they need, abusing the power they possess. They are wrecking democracies across the world as they make rules in their favor at the expense of the 99 percent and the planet.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed an “Extraordinary Committee” of independent experts that published the first-ever G20 global inequality report earlier this month. The report shows that the richest 1 percent has captured 41 percent of all new wealth since 2000, while the bottom half of humanity received just 1 percent. The report notes that one in four people globally now face food insecurity even as the wealth of billionaires reaches levels equivalent to up to 16 percent of global GDP. Those words will not mean much to those on the frontlines of inequality without action, without redistribution.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other bodies have also acknowledged that extreme inequalities are thwarting the pace and sustainability of economic growth, eroding social cohesion and trust, and undermining democratic institutions and political stability that is fueling conflict and social unrest. However, they are still part of the problem, not the solution.
Enraged young people from Morocco to Madagascar, Kathmandu to Lima continue to lead street protests worldwide demanding accountability and challenging economic systems because they are not working for them. They are frustrated by poor service delivery, abuse of power concentrated in the hands of a few, unfulfilled promises, economic systems that continue to squeeze the little they earn, unemployment, unjust debt and climate breakdown.
They are drawing a red line against the failed systems and saying loud and clear, “Enough is enough.”
This is a time bomb and a bigger explosion threatens the planet and everyone on it, regardless how fat their bank account is. But we have solutions. This is not rocket science and the global majority, the 99%, have the answers and are already putting them into practice.
Wealth taxes are a progressive solution to address extreme inequalities — far better than the consumption taxes that many governments in the Global South are imposing on their people to service unjust debt and compensate for unpaid taxes by the super-rich. Taxing the super-rich can generate significant recurring revenue and restore public trust. Tax revenues from the super-rich are enough to fund essential services, such as education, healthcare, and social safety nets, which are key drivers of long-term inequality reduction.
Participants in the People’s Summit are also demanding that rich polluters pay for just transitions to clean energy. They are calling for redistributing health care to guarantee reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. And they are demanding protection of civic space and cultural rights by defending the freedom to speak, organize, and create.
The 2025 G20 Leaders Summit taking place not far from the We the 99 Peoples Summit has an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past by listening to the global majority that are gathered at Constitution Hill. Global leaders, including the G20, must stop turning for solutions to the same elites who created and continue to fuel the inequality crisis. Instead, they need to listen to the voices of the 99% – the people who have endured inequality and survived against all odds.
The 99% hold the answers. And the answer is clear: replace the system built by the 1% with a system designed for and by the 99%.
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The G20 Is a Failure, But Can It Do Better to Correct Past Mistakes?
World leaders heading to the G20 summit should use this rare multilateral space to advance a more equitable and sustainable global economy. Will they?
Nov 15, 2025
Multilateralism is in tatters. Instead of rules-based, consensus agreements, global economic relations have largely devolved into one-on-one arm-twisting and name-calling, alternating with fawning sycophancy and lavish personal gifts. In recent negotiations with Asian leaders, President Trump scored a gold golf ball, a gold crown, and a gold-flecked dessert.
In a world already divided by extreme inequalities, the collapse of multilateralism makes it even more likely that the most powerful players — the largest economies and the wealthiest corporations and individuals — will score the best deals. Small countries and ordinary people, from Iowa soybean farmers and Mexican factory workers to digital service consumers in Cambodia, are even more likely to get the shaft.
The G20 is a space that was intended to catalyze multilateral action. In fact, it touts itself as the “the premier forum for international economic cooperation,” and it is the one place where leaders of the world’s largest economies sit down together at least once a year for face-to-face dialogue.
South Africa will host this year’s G20 summit from November 22 to 23, and the United States will host the next one in December 2026. Do we have any reason to think this forum holds potential for not only restoring multilateralism but also advancing a more equitable global economy?
This is a question I’ve grappled with over the past several months as part of a team of analysts from the UK, Brazil, South Africa, and other countries. In our new joint report, The G20 at a Crossroads, we document a few examples of decisive actions this body has taken during its nearly two decades of existence.
In the midst of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008, for instance, labor unions and others successfully lobbied G20 leaders to adopt coordinated stimulus measures that helped avoid a depression-level global collapse.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the G20 approved of at least some debt relief for low-income countries and authorized $650 billion in financial aid in the form of “special drawing rights,” the largest-ever allocation of this IMF-created international reserve asset.
These actions were far from perfect. Governments prematurely aborted the stimulus programs they adopted after the 2008 crash in favor of austerity budgets that deepened and prolonged economic crises.
Pandemic support programs were woefully insufficient for the poorest countries and failed to prevent many of them from sinking even further into debt. Between 2019 and 2023, Sub-Saharan Africa’s total external debts increased from $747 billion to $864 billion while the number of global billionaires grew from 2,153 to 2,640. Overall, 3.4 billion of the world’s people live in countries that spent more money in the years 2021-2023 servicing their foreign debts than on public education or health.
What can we learn from these examples? G20 leaders obviously have the power to mobilize vast resources, but the few times they’ve used this power, the focus has largely been on containing market crises to protect the interests of the wealthiest creditors and investors rather than improving the lives of the most vulnerable.
And so while we need to push for renewed multilateralism, we cannot be satisfied with a return to old models. We need new approaches that go beyond crisis management to build a more resilient, sustainable, and just global economy for the long term.
To achieve this, the G20 must tackle what we describe in our report as the “lived crises of our time” — the daily realities of extreme droughts, food insecurity, unaffordable housing, precarious work, debt traps, and forced displacement.
Decades of neglecting these threats to global stability has undercut the welfare of people in both the Global North and South. High levels of poverty and unemployment in the developing world, for example, weaken the bargaining power of U.S. workers who are competing in a global labor pool.
Climate change, obviously, knows no boundaries. And skyrocketing inequality is fueling political polarization, authoritarianism, and xenophobia around the world, as elites deflect blame onto migrants and other convenient scapegoats instead of confronting structural failures.
Last year, the Brazilian presidency took important steps towards broadening the G20 agenda. Through diplomacy, sustained civil society engagement, and collaboration with innovative academics, they elevated critical proposals for clean energy financing, taxing extreme wealth, and valuing care work. And while they did not secure G20-wide cooperation on these fronts, their efforts gave a boost to campaigns in numerous countries for increasing taxes on billionaires and ensuring decent pay for caregivers and affordable care for those who need it.
“Wherever we live, we all want the same things — a secure place to live, a healthy environment, the ability to care for our loved ones, and the chance to plan for our future,” notes our lead report author, Fernanda Balata, of the New Economics Foundation.
With political will and a commitment to cooperation, G20 leaders have the power to deliver these basic elements of a dignified life to billions of people.
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500+ Experts Worldwide Call for Global Panel to Address ‘Inequality Emergency’
"Clear and proven steps can be taken to reduce it and build more equal societies and economies," wrote economists and other experts, "which are the fundamental foundation stone of a successful future for us all."
Nov 14, 2025
Emphasizing that economic inequality is "a policy choice," more than 500 economists and other experts on the global wealth gap are endorsing a call made earlier this month in the first-ever G20 report on inequality: The "inequality emergency" must be confronted by new international body inspired by the United Nations' panel on climate change.
The creation of an International Panel on Inequality (IPI) was a central recommendation of the landmark report set to be presented next week at the G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg, and renowned economists including 2024 Nobel economics laureate Daron Acemoglum, Thomas Piketty, Isabella Weber, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jason Hickel were among those who signed a letter Thursday urging the creation of the committee.
The inclusion of economists, climate scientists, epidemiologists, historians, and experts from a range of other disciplines "reflects a key fact," said the signatories. "High levels of economic inequality have a negative impact on every aspect of human life and progress, including our economies, our democracies, and the very survival of the planet."
"Just as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has played a vital role in providing neutral, science-based, and objective assessments of climate change, a new International Panel on Inequality would do the same for the inequality emergency," reads the letter, which was also signed by global economic leaders including former US Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and former World Bank top economists and leaders.
Since its inception nearly four decades ago, the IPCC has provided governments with the most up-to-date scientific information about planetary heating and its impacts. Its assessments have informed the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which subjected wealthy countries to emissions targets for the first time; and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has required countries to develop and implement plans to draw down planet-heating emissions.
An IPI, said the experts on Thursday, "would provide policymakers the best, most objective assessments on the scale of inequality, its causes and consequences, and consider potential solutions."
"We believe this is in the interests of policymakers from across the political spectrum, who see the importance of this issue and the need to base responses to it on data and evidence and sound analysis," reads the letter. "We know that scholars and experts across the world would readily contribute their time voluntarily—as thousands do for the IPCC—in support of such a necessary and vital international initiative. We are ready to assist in this process."
The letter followed the release of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Inequality's landmark report, which was presented to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this month ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit.
The Extraordinary Committee, which is led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and also includes inequality experts such as Winnie Byanyima of Uganda and Jayati Ghosh of India, warned that in the last quarter-century, the wealthiest 1% of people around the globe have captured more than 40% of all new wealth—$1.3 million on average—while the bottom 50% has seen its wealth grow by just 1%, or about $585, in constant US dollars.
One in four people around the globe—roughly 2.3 billion people—face moderate or severe food insecurity, meaning they regularly skip meals. The report found that the problem is getting significantly worse, with the number of food-insecure people rising by 335 million since 2019.
The report found that 80% of all countries—accounting for roughly 90% of the global population—have high levels of income inequality, making them seven times more likely than more equal countries to experience democratic decline.
“We are at a dangerous moment in human history," said Piketty, co-director of the World Inequality Lab and World Inequality Database. "Rampant inequality is dividing nations and communities, threatening our social fabric, human rights, and the very essence of democracy. A global effort to tackle inequality is needed—and rigorous analysis of its causes, drivers, and solutions is the first step."
"Governments need to live up to the G20 Summit’s promise of ‘solidarity, equality, sustainability’ and urgently establish an International Panel on Inequality," he added.
Countries with low levels of inequality included Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland—places that also consistently rank high on global reports on happiness and that were found to have low levels of "health, social, and environmental problems," according to the report.
The countries with low levels of inequality have "generous universal transfers and social insurance, supplemented by targeted assistance," the report says.
“High inequality is the result of decades of a failed economics that has primarily benefited the richest in our societies," said Chang, research professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London. "Not only is there a lot of evidence showing that higher inequality produces more negative economic and social outcomes, there are quite a few examples of more egalitarian societies growing much faster than comparable but more unequal societies.”
The signatories of the letter emphasized that inequality "is not inevitable."
"Clear and proven steps can be taken to reduce it and build more equal societies and economies," they wrote, "which are the fundamental foundation stone of a successful future for us all."
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$70 Trillion in Inherited Wealth Shows Global 'Inequality Emergency' Spiraling Out of Control
"Inequality is a crisis in need of concerted action," said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Nov 04, 2025
A panel of experts convened by South Africa's president warned Tuesday that the world is facing an "inequality emergency" as the richest people on the planet capture a disproportionate share of new wealth and prepare to pass it down to their heirs—perpetuating the chasm between economic elites and everyone else.
The panel, led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, notes in a new report that over $70 trillion in wealth will be passed down to heirs over the next decade. In the next 30 years, the panel estimates, 1,000 billionaires will transfer more than $5.2 trillion to their heirs mostly untaxed.
"Inequality is one of the most urgent concerns in the world today, generating many other problems in economies, societies, polities and the environment," states the report, published ahead of the G20 meetings in Johannesburg at the end of the month.
Joining Stiglitz on the panel, formally called the Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Global Inequality, were Adriana Abdenur of Brazil, Winnie Byanyima of Uganda, Jayati Ghosh of India, and Imraan Valodia and Wanga Zembe-Mkabile of South Africa.
"Inequality is not a given; combating it is necessary and possible," the experts wrote. "Inequality results from policy choices that reflect ethical attitudes and morals, as well as economic trade-offs. It is not just a matter of concern for individual countries, but a global concern that should be on the international agenda—and therefore the G20's."
Since 2000, the global 1% has captured more than 40% of all new wealth while the bottom half of humanity saw its wealth grow by just 1%, according to the new report. More than 80% of countries—accounting for roughly 90% of the global population—have high levels of income inequality, which undermines social cohesion, economic functioning, and democratic institutions nationally and worldwide.
The panel recommends a broad scope of policy changes to tackle runaway income and wealth inequality, from ensuring the fair taxation of multinational corporations and ultra-rich individuals, to antitrust policies that reduce corporate concentration, to major investments in public services.
The experts also called for the creation of an International Panel on Inequality—inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—"to support governments and multilateral agencies with authoritative assessments and analyses of inequality" that would "empower policymaking."
"The committee's work showed us that inequality is a crisis in need of concerted action," Stiglitz said Tuesday. "The necessary step to taking this action is for policymakers, political leaders, the private sector, journalists and academia to have accurate and timely information and analysis of the inequality crisis. This is why our recommendation above all is for a new International Panel on Inequality."
"It would learn from the remarkable job the IPCC has done for climate change, bringing together technical expertise worldwide to track inequality and assess what is driving it," he added.
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After COP29, the World Is Losing Faith in the UN Climate Process
Developed countries intentionally or unintentionally let dejection work its way through the conference for several reasons, the most obvious being that their home constituencies are turning against climate and environmental justice.
Dec 21, 2024
The United Nations Climate Summit (COP29), held in Baku, Azerbaijan last month, apparently lived up to its moniker: “The Finance COP.” Two weeks of semantic quibbling finally yielded an agreement that would triple climate finance to $300 billion a year by 2035. Developing countries were calling for $1.3 trillion instead, which would have been more than four times the amount agreed. Many pooh-poohed the promised $300 billion as “too little, too distant.” Even if one ignores “the too little part,” it is hard to overlook the redeeming of the pledge way off into the future, a fact that was obscured due to the linguistic jumble of U.N.-speak, legalese, and bureaucratese in the document.
Given that it won’t be realized for 11 years, the agreement raises a number of rhetorical questions. Will nature and its fury be put on pause till 2035? Will climate action (emissions reduction) and adaptation (to climate change) continue at no cost or on the cheap? Will the climate stop changing? Despite its appearance to the contrary, the tripling of climate finance was a pretend effort to leave Baku with a semblance of seriousness. Yet the U.N. Executive Secretary for Climate Change was unsure if the agreed finance would be delivered as promised. He grandly hailed the agreement as an “insurance policy for humanity,” but equally skeptically cautioned that an “insurance policy only works if premiums are paid in full and on time.”
In reality, agreements like climate finance or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are no different than New Year Resolutions that are only honored in intended or unintended breaches. What make the climate finance agreement even less resolute are three aspects.
The world’s largest and wealthiest nations seem to have concluded that they don’t need the rest of the world or their NDCs to reduce emissions.
First, it is neither obligatory nor enforceable. Pledges have been made on the part of developed countries like the European Union, the United States, and Japan—whose respective leaders ironically chose to abstain from the summit—that “agreed to help raise $300 billion a year by 2035.” They didn’t take it upon themselves to pay the promised amount but rather pledged to “help raise $300 billion,” which is akin to crowdfunding the whole effort.
Second, COP29 cast its central objective as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), i.e., each developed country will pledge a specific amount of contribution to climate finance. No such quantification was agreed. All that was agreed was that developed countries would “help raise $300 billion a year by 2035.” Fundraising is not a quantified financial commitment.
Third, and above all, there was no agreement on what will count as climate finance: public finance, private finance, bank loans, philanthropy, investment, or all of it? These lacunae leave so big a hole in the climate finance agreement that it can let through even a Category-5 storm. Some delegates call the agreement a bad deal. Others cry foul that the only deal worse than no deal is a bad deal.
All parties to the agreement, thus, returned home unhappy. Developed countries were sticking together to keep their current commitment of $100 billion unchanged. Developing countries insisted on raising it to $1.3 trillion effective now. Hosts of COP29 were overrunning the conference schedule to get a deal acceptable to both developed and developing countries. Civil society organizations were dismissing the agreement as “a bad deal,” even a “joke.” As a result, everyone left the conference dejected.
Developed countries intentionally or unintentionally let this dejection work its way through the conference for several reasons, the most obvious being that their home constituencies are turning against climate and environmental justice. Western societies’ rightward lurch has left their governments unwilling and unable to make any commitment to finance climate action. It is no coincidence that leaders of major European nations such as Germany and France and even that of the European Union chose to sit out the Conference.
The leaders of the five-member BRICS were also no shows. Leaders of five of the G7 countries opted out of the Conference. Canada’s leader flew instead to Florida to spend a day with the U.S. president-elect to discuss reviving suspended oil and gas pipeline projects. Leaders of 13 of the G20 countries, a cluster of the world’s largest and wealthiest economies, too, voted with feet. The abstaining leaders’ nations represent “the World’s 13 Top Polluters.” For these reasons, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea called COP29 a “total waste of time” and pulled out of the conference. The president of Argentina, who called the climate crisis a “socialist lie,” pulled his country out of the conference altogether, a move that many fear threatens the viability of the Paris climate pact. The science-denying Argentine leader might have withdrawn from the summit in what historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience” to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Trump stands by his commitment to pull the United States out of the Paris climate pact and stop contributing to climate finance, just as he did during his first term.
The Paris climate pact is even more threatened by the G20 nations’ aversion to the U.N. process on climate change. The G20 held a pow-wow of its own in Brazil at the same time as the U.N. climate summit. The Brazilian leader, who is an ardent champion of climate justice, skipped COP29 “due to head injury,” but he happily made himself available to host and fete leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies at exactly the same time as the Baku summit was underway. The agenda at the G20 summit was dominated by economic growth that to most scientists and environmentalists is at the heart of climate change. In fact, the G20 summit stole the march on COP29. Even the U.N. secretary general, who was the official host of the Baku summit, left in the middle of the proceedings to fly to Brazil to attend the G20 summit instead.
The world’s largest and wealthiest nations seem to have concluded that they don’t need the rest of the world or their NDCs to reduce emissions. G20 countries account for 80% of the world’s emissions, while the least developed countries just 4% of them. If G20 nations decide to transition away from fossil fuel energy, it will dramatically reduce atmospheric carbon’s impact on soaring temperatures. In this picture, the rest of the 180 countries and their emissions hardly matter. It’s what environmental sociologist William Freudenburg called disproportionality: A handful of powerful actors account for the disproportionate amount of industrial pollution. The world’s largest and wealthiest economies have the financial means, technological resources, and alternative paths away from fossilized fuels.
The Club of Rome, a business group that jolted the world with its classic report on Limits to Growth in 1972, wrote an open letter expressing its dismay at what it calls the failed process of COPs and voiced a call for urgent reforms. Among the signatories were such luminaries as the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, and former U.N. Executive Secretary for Climate Change Christiana Figueres. This lack of confidence in U.N. processes is another bad omen for future U.N. climate summits and more importantly the Paris climate pact, especially once the Trump administration is seated in Washington early next year.
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COP29 Was a Missed Opportunity: Rethinking Our Path to a Just and Sustainable Future
COP30 must be the summit that moves beyond the transactional nature of past negotiations to embrace ideas that recognize the intrinsic value of nature and the need for global solidarity in protecting it.
Dec 17, 2024
COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan has come and gone, leaving behind a sense of cautious reflection rather than the transformative shift many had hoped for. While the summit certainly brought some progress, it has left us with the bittersweet feeling that the climate crisis, with its urgent and pervasive impacts, still seems to be an issue addressed by small steps rather than bold, immediate action. In this sense, COP29 could be seen as both a missed opportunity and a call to rethink our approach to climate change.
A key discussion centered on mobilizing $300 billion annually by 2035 for climate mitigation efforts in vulnerable countries. While this figure might seem substantial, experts argue that at least $1.3 trillion is needed to address the crisis effectively. Even more concerning, however, is the lack of clarity about the sources of this funding; whether public or private, and how it will be allocated. While the commitments made are modest, they underscore a greater issue: the need for a radical shift in how climate finance is understood and structured.
Despite reservations, COP29 provided space for relevant debates about how to create a more inclusive and just financial system. The mobilisation of resources for the Global South is undoubtedly pressing, and the conversation is really just getting started. What is increasingly clear is that we must rethink the economic structures we have inherited, which often fail to address the systemic inequalities that underpin the climate crisis. Financial solutions must be holistic, incorporating the needs of vulnerable populations and the environment in ways that go beyond traditional market-driven approaches.
The environmental crisis cannot be solved by perpetuating existing power dynamics but requires finding solutions rooted in equity, justice, and a deep respect for the interconnectedness of all life.
Meanwhile, at the G20 summit, which ran in parallel to COP29, discussions on Universal Basic Income (UBI) for countries most affected by climate change gained traction. Countries in Latin America, including Brazil and Colombia, championed this idea, seeing it as a preventive measure against the growing polycrisis. UBI could offer a crucial safety net for populations already feeling the severe impacts of climate disruption. Despite its growing relevance and the goals set for COP30, UBI was sidelined at COP29, with market-based solutions taking center stage—solutions that largely overlook the root causes of the climate emergency.
The insistence on market-driven solutions, such as carbon credits, remains a central feature of international climate discussions. These mechanisms, which allow wealthy countries and corporations to offset emissions by purchasing credits from poorer nations, have yet to deliver the necessary reductions in global emissions. What is more concerning is that these market-based solutions reinforce a narrative of economic growth over environmental sustainability. Until the global conversation shifts away from this paradigm, meaningful progress will remain elusive.
The focus on market mechanisms at COP29 underscores the persistent power imbalances that shape climate action. Current international decision-making continues to rely on "realpolitik"—power dynamics that have failed to address both environmental and peace crises. This approach reinforces the dominance of wealthier nations and multinational corporations, while the voices of the Global South remain marginalized.
Although COP29 did not embrace the bold ideas needed to tackle the climate crisis, it has made one thing clear: The future of climate action lies in transforming how we relate to the planet and to each other. Climate change is a social justice issue that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, yet their voices continue to be overlooked in global decision-making. The environmental crisis cannot be solved by perpetuating existing power dynamics but requires finding solutions rooted in equity, justice, and a deep respect for the interconnectedness of all life.
One potential avenue for transformative action underrepresented at COP29 is the Cap and Share model. This proposal advocates for a carbon tax on the largest polluters, with the revenue redistributed to support vulnerable populations. By holding major emitters accountable and ensuring the most affected communities are supported, Cap and Share challenges the economic systems that have exacerbated both environmental degradation and social inequality. Such an approach would lay the foundations for a fairer and more sustainable global response to the climate crisis.
Looking ahead to COP30, there is an opportunity to break the cycle and center discussions on a more profound philosophical reimagining of our relationship with nature. It is time to ask ourselves: What does a "good life" mean in the context of the climate crisis, and how can we redefine it in a way that prioritizes ecological harmony over economic interests? COP30 could be the moment to rediscover the wisdom that reminds us that humanity is not separate from nature, but an integral part of the web of life that sustains the planet.
To make this shift a reality, we must draw inspiration from initiatives that can empower local communities, particularly in regions most affected by climate change. The principles of Cap and Share can materialise not just through international policy but by supporting initiatives in local territories that engage communities who have suffered the consequences of climate change while also playing a critical role in preserving biodiversity. These initiatives could provide the foundation for overcoming the structural inequalities that perpetuate social and environmental harm, giving rise to a more just and sustainable world.
COP30 must, therefore, be the summit that moves beyond the transactional nature of past negotiations. It should be the moment when we embrace ideas that recognize the intrinsic value of nature and the need for global solidarity in protecting it. But for that to happen, we must first ask: Are we prepared to rethink the way we relate to the planet and each other in order to build a more just and sustainable future?
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The Super-Rich Are Gobbling Up Earth’s Future and Our Leaders Are Letting Them
Billions upon billions give our world’s wealthiest an overabundance of mind-boggling political power, and right now they’re wielding that power to protect their fortunes at the expense of our planet’s future.
Dec 05, 2024
Looking to find something special this holiday season for that mega-millionaire in your life? The Italian retailer Valextra has just what you may need: a cocktail set that offers a “vision of design fluidity and discreet luxury.” Just $13,400 for a leathered and lacquered box that includes “a shaker, cocktail tools made from silvered brass, and two martini glasses.”
Or maybe you’re looking for a nice, new waterfront condo in South Florida. The private-equity movers and shakers at Apollo Global have just advanced the $307 million needed to plop 92 sumptuous residences on Florida’s “Millionaire’s Mile” near Pompano Beach. Each of these seaside palaces will enjoy “direct access to a private beach with food and beverage service.”
Or do you have your heart set on a thrilling new artistic experience? The billionaire crypto king Justin Sun certainly delivered one last Friday. Two days earlier, at a Sotheby’s auction, Sun had outlasted six other bidders and won—for $6.2 million—an artwork from an Italian absurdist artist. Sun proceeded to work up an appetite and then, before a packed news conference at a pricey Hong Kong hotel, ate his historic acquisition: a banana duct-taped to a wall. Only a video of the banana remains.
What wealthy nations do take seriously: the interests of their wealthy. And that seriousness is setting the world up for abject climate failure.
For Justin Sun and his fellow billionaires, no artwork or beachfront palace or luxury gift can make more—at worst—than a modest dent of their grand personal fortunes. Today’s global billionaires, a new report from the world’s top commercial tracker of grand fortunes calculates, more than doubled their combined wealth last year, to a record $12.1 trillion.
These 3,323 billionaires make up, the new data from researchers at Altrata show, less than 1% of our world’s “ultra-high net worth” population, those wealthy worth at least $30 million. But these few thousands of billionaires are sitting upon 25% of global ultra-high net worth.
Billionaires worth over $10 billion, add Altrata’s analysts in their latest annual Billionaire Census, make up only 6% of the billionaires who call our Earth home. These fortunate few hold 41% of billionaire wealth.
Billionaires who call the United States home, meanwhile, once again dominate Altrata’s latest global wealth stats. Americans hold a full third of the world’s billion-dollar fortunes, over three times the share of China, the world’s second-largest billionaire hotspot.
Another sign of America’s billionaire dominance: The world’s four richest individuals—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison—all just happen to be Americans. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is now listing their combined net worth at nearly $1 trillion.
Fortunes as massive as these don’t just give our richest plenty of pocket change for the world’s most extravagant luxuries. These billions upon billions give our nation’s—and our world’s—wealthiest an overabundance of mind-boggling political power, and right now they’re wielding that power to protect their fortunes at the expense of our planet’s future.
Some of our world’s most perceptive climate journalists have been tracking that wielding this past month at two pivotal global conferences.
The first of these, in Rio de Janeiro, involved what have become known as the “G20” nations, a grouping that includes some 19 top national economic powers and two regional bodies, the European Union and the African Union. Different countries chair the G20 each year, but none have done their chairing more aggressively than Brazil, this past year’s chair.
Under Brazil’s progressive president, the former union leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, this home to the endangered Amazon rainforest has spent 2024 pushing the G20 to get serious about taxing the world’s super rich—and using the proceeds from those taxes to address the world’s deepening climate calamity.
Earlier this year, Brazil brought before a meeting of the G20’s national finance ministers the famed E.U. Tax Observatory economist Gabriel Zucman, one of the world’s top experts on tax-the-rich options. Zucman proceeded to make a powerful case for an annual global 2% tax on the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest.
On paper, Brazil’s tax advocacy has made a real impact. The final declaration that nations attending last month’s 2024 G20 summit in Rio adopted is overflowing with admirable egalitarian sentiments.
“We live in times of major geopolitical, socioeconomic, and climate and environmental challenges and crises, which require urgent action,” the G20 nations solemnly declared. Added their official statement: “We recognize that inequality within and among countries is at the root of most global challenges that we face and is aggravated by them.”
This noble G20 summit declaration, notes 350.org climate activist Kate Blagojevic, shows that Brazil and other G20 environmentally conscious nations have essentially “gained consensus for one of the most logical solutions to one of the world’s most pressing issues—taxing billionaires to pay for climate action.”
But now, stresses Blagojevic, G20 governments “must build on the growing popular support for taxing extreme wealth by putting words into action.”
Those rich holding that extreme wealth, agrees Emma Seery, Oxfam’s lead on development finance, have plenty of billions they could be sharing.
“Today,” Seery notes, “the world’s 16 richest individuals would still be billionaires even if 99% of their wealth vanished overnight.”
Those super rich a bit below that top-16 status have ample quantities of wealth to share as well. Since 1980, Seery points out, the G20’s richest 1% “have seen their tax rates fall by roughly a third” over the same years their share of global income was jumping by 45%.
Despite stats like these, several key G20 powerhouses—most notably the United States and Germany—have been showing little interest in moving expeditiously in any significant tax-the-rich direction. “Some” G20 leaders, as the Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has cautiously acknowledged, have objections “to issues linked to the climate agenda, to the financing agenda, above all to the issue of taxing the super rich.”
These objections turned out to be far more upfront at last month’s second pivotal global gathering on climate chaos, the United Nations annual climate “Conference of the Parties,” COP for short, a huge assembly held this year in Baku, the capital of oil-rich Azerbaijan. This year’s COP29 ended a few days after the G20 session and focused on the pivotal questions of how much fighting climate change is going to cost and who ought to be footing the bill.
What makes these two questions so absolutely pivotal?
“Without help,” as Heated World’s Arielle Samuelson puts it, “poorer countries will be unable to transition away from fossil fuels, driving up emissions for the whole planet.”
The poorer of the nearly 200 nations attending COP29 did considerable pushing for at least $1.3 trillion a year in climate aid, an outlay that, Fiji deputy prime minister Biman Prasad observed, “pales in the face of the $7 trillion” wasted annually on subsidies for fossil fuels and the corporations they enrich.
In the end, “after marathon talks and bitter recriminations,” COP29 did produce a consensus of sorts. The gathered nations agreed on the need for $1.3 trillion in help for developing nations, but only $300 billion of that total will come in grants and low-interest loans. All the rest, reports The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey, “will have to come from private investors” and unspecified new sources of revenue.
This COP29 outcome, sums up a disgusted Mohamed Adow of the think-tank Power Shift Africa, amounts to a “disaster for the developing world,” a “betrayal of both people and planet by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously.”
What wealthy nations do take seriously: the interests of their wealthy. And that seriousness is setting the world up for abject climate failure.
The governments of wealthy nations, as the British economist Michael Roberts reflects, ought to be bankrolling shifts to renewable energy, a power source that’s continuing to get ever less expensive. But the world’s most powerful governments are insisting instead “that private investment should lead the drive to renewable power,” and that insistence is crippling the move to renewables.
Why? Private investors, Roberts explains, only invest when investing figures to pay—in healthy profits. With prices for renewables falling, these healthy profits aren’t materializing. Investors, consequently, are making no rush to invest in renewables. They might as well, many of these wealthy have come to believe, double down on fossil fuels.
Given all these dynamics, will all the rest of us be able to save our planet? Maybe—if we double down on saving our planet from our plutocrats.
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G20 Leaders Reach 'Landmark Commitment' for Global Tax on Ultrarich
"Now is the time to turn words into action and launch an inclusive international negotiation, extending beyond G20 countries, on the reform of the taxation of the superrich," said economist Gabriel Zucman.
Nov 19, 2024
Acknowledging that "the era of the billionaire" is still in full swing across the globe, economic justice advocates on Tuesday applauded a "landmark commitment" by G20 leaders at the group's annual summit in Rio de Janeiro, where delegates agreed to cooperate on efforts to ensure the richest households in the world are taxed fairly.
The final communiqué out of the G20 Summit includes a commitment from 19 countries, the European Union, and the African Union, to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed."
"Cooperation could involve exchanging best practices, encouraging debates around tax principles, and devising anti-avoidance mechanisms, including addressing potentially harmful tax practices," reads the communiqué. "We look forward to continuing to discuss these issues in the G20 and other relevant forums, counting on the technical inputs of relevant international organizations, academia, and experts."
The final text was brokered by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, and the E.U. Tax Observatory noted that Argentina's right-wing president, Javier Milei, "failed to convince other G20 countries to block the communiqué."
The meeting took place less than a year after economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the E.U. Tax Observatory, published a report titled A Blueprint for a Coordinated Minimum Effective Taxation Standard for Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals, which informed G20 finance discussions leading up to the summit.
"A minimum tax on billionaires equal to 2% of their wealth would raise $200-$250 billion per year globally from about 3,000 taxpayers; extending the tax to centimillionaires would add $100-$140 billion," said Zucman, a leading expert on tax avoidance and reducing inequality, in the report.
Billionaires' effective tax rate is currently equivalent to 0.3% of their wealth, requiring them to pay a far lower rate than middle-class taxpayers.
Zucman hailed the agreement out of the summit in Rio de Janeiro as a "historic decision" and said concrete action by the world's governments must follow.
"Now is the time to turn words into action and launch an inclusive international negotiation, extending beyond G20 countries, on the reform of the taxation of the superrich," said Zucman.
Along with Milei, the Biden administration pushed back this year as the G20 weighed Zucman's tax proposal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told The Wall Street Journal in May that the "notion of some common global arrangement for taxing billionaires with proceeds redistributed in some way—we're not supportive of a process to try to achieve that. That's something we can't sign on to."
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, the U.S. is one of eight countries that are contributing to an international loss of $492 billion in taxes each year as multinational corporations and ultrawealthy individuals underpay. The eight countries—which also include Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the U.K.—oppose a United Nations tax convention.
Jenny Ricks, general secretary of the Fight Inequality Alliance, said that particularly with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in January, "we live in the era of the billionaire."
"We need to move to the era of the 99%," said Ricks. "This shift won't come easily. The U.S. elections have shown how the superrich can use their wealth and power to influence policies and shape the outcomes of elections. Leaders like Trump in the U.S. and Javier Milei in Argentina are actively working to derail international cooperation, while politicians around the world fail to oppose the vested interests that continue to benefit from such unequal societies."
"We will fight harder than ever before to transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into a global reality," she added. "We need more equal societies in which the richest no longer hold all the power and wealth, with devastating consequences. We need to redistribute the wealth of the superrich to fund vital public services and the response to climate change. Such a transformation is essential to creating the alternative we seek to today's broken system."
Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brazil, applauded Lula's government and the G20 leaders for responding "to people's demands worldwide to tackle extreme inequality, hunger, and climate breakdown, and particularly for rallying action on taxing the superrich."
"G20 governments deserve praise for their groundbreaking commitment to cooperate on taxing the world's superrich. But we won't rest until this delivers real change for people and planet," said Santiago, adding that governments now ostensibly supporting a tax on billionaires' wealth should also "be championing a $5 trillion climate finance goal at COP29," the U.N. summit set to wrap up in Baku, Azerbaijan this week.
"How can they argue that climate justice is unaffordable with a deal to raise trillions of dollars by taxing the superrich on the table?" she asked.
Quentin Parrinello, policy director at the E.U. Tax Observatory, asserted that negotiations on the tax proposal "must now extend to a much more inclusive space than the G20."
"Such reforms don't happen overnight, but time is pressing," said Parrinello. "This agenda is even more important today, with the risk of geopolitical fragmentation and looming wealth concentration fueling inequality and undermining democracy."
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Tax Dodging by Super-Rich, Big Corporations Costs Nations Half a Trillion Per Year: Study
"The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system," said the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.
Nov 19, 2024
A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.
The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that "the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion." Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN's calculations.
"For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism," the study reads. "And in the same way, there is scope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations."
The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly's vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.
According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world's population.
"The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich," Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. "The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it's absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it."
"It's perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don't play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this," Cobham added.
TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the "hurtful eight"—issued a communiqué pledging to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed." Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.
The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to "transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality."
The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.
The new TJN study cites Trump's pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation.
"People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly," Liz Nelson, TJN's director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. "But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax."
"We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more," Nelson added. "It's time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders."
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