On October 5th, the B20 released their final recommendations to the G20 as prepared by the B20’s six taskforces and the Women in Business Action Council. The U.S.-Saudi Business Council (USSBC), a member of the B20 Trade & Investment Taskforce, is pleased to provide you with a summary of the 25 policy recommendations that will be formally presented to the G20 during the B20 Virtual Summit on October 26-27th. The policy recommendations were divided into three themes: Empowering People, Safeguarding the Planet, and Shaping New Frontiers. Click here to read our summary of the Empowering People recommendations.
The second theme, “Safeguarding the Planet,” encompasses three recommendations aiming to provide cleaner energy systems for the next era of power generation, manage emissions for sustainable development, foster sustainable and resilient water systems globally, and preserve the biodiversity and ecological health of the world’s oceans. The B20 recognizes three basic facts crucial to ensuring long-term sustainability of the environment and its ability to support the global economy: that ecological damage can be directly attributed to human activities; human desires would have to be soon satisfied with nature-based solutions and strictly within the limits of planetary boundaries; and the pace of corrective actions must be accelerated and must be informed by science. In essence, the “Safeguarding the Planet” recommendations were crafted to put growth on a resilient and sustainable path that benefits all.
The first recommendation of Safeguarding the Planet aligns the climate and environmental goals of the B20 with the 2016 Paris Agreement goal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” Furthermore, this recommendation also seeks to commit the G20 to achieving carbon neutrality in the second half of the 21st century (preferably by 2050) and developing the necessary regulatory and financial policy frameworks to drive the global economy towards carbon neutrality. The other two recommendations under this theme request that the G20 retrofit or develop new infrastructure that can better withstand climate hazards and define new policies and guidelines to promote usage of freshwater and ocean systems.
The “Safeguarding the Planet” theme was combined from various recommendations put forth by the B20 taskforces, including Energy, Sustainability, and Climate (co-chaired by USSBC members Dow Chemical Company and Air Products and Chemicals); Integrity and Compliance (chaired and co-chaired by USSBC members Saudi Telecom Company and SABIC, respectively); and Finance and Infrastructure. Other USSBC members played an active role in each taskforce and were instrumental in the B20’s adoption of these recommendations, including Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani & Sons Group of Companies, Alfanar Construction, Chubb Arabia Cooperative Insurance Company, Citigroup, Jacobs, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., NEOM, The Olayan Group, and Saudi British Bank. The B20, consisting of six taskforces and one action council, represents the international business community in its dialogue with the G20 and serves as the voice of the private sector across all economic sectors of the G20 members. We at the USSBC further invite you to review the full set of policy recommendations from the included link and to follow us on Twitter for more updates on the G20 and B20.
