Climate change should be on G20 agenda: CEDA

One of Australia’s oldest economic and business policy think tanks has called for climate change to be put onto the agenda for the upcoming G20 Summit in Brisbane, as one of the key financial risks currently threatening global economic health.

In a report released on Tuesday, the Centre for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) argued that G20 – the continued relevance of which has been called into question – still had a role to play in tackling the world’s major economic challenges.

But the report – Australia’s Brisbane Summit challenge: Securing G20’s future – stressed that to fulfil this role, the mid-November Brisbane meeting would need to deliver a plan for real action to reduce the risk of another global financial crisis.

And chief among these risks, the report said, was climate change – which Australia had dropped from this year’s agenda on the basis that it was not an economic concern, despite the potential economic consequences identified by a previous CEDA report and many others.

“Climate change is a G20 litmus test as well as a test of Australia’s role,” says the report. “It is a problem with a global consequence requiring collective action.”

CEDA says that while the G20 would not be expected to come to a global climate action agreement or decision, its role would be to engage in open discussions that may not be possible at other global organisations such as the UN.

“G20 climate change discussions would be more representative of the global economy than G7/8 discussions,” the report says. “It would help to inform global policy development, adding its members’ political weight to climate action negotiations that may be happening at other forums,” including this year’s UN climate talks (COP 21) in Paris.

“As the host of the G20 Brisbane Summit, Australia has a unique opportunity, in fact a duty, to make sure that the forum is more than a ‘talkfest’, and that key issues with significance for both our own economy and globally are tackled effectively,” said CEDA chief executive Stephen Martin.

“The impact of the GFC is still being felt in the world economy and while Australia was insulated from its worst effects by the mining boom, it is unlikely we would have the same buffer if another occurred,” Professor Martin said.

“Australia is spending a significant amount, suggested as being almost half a billion dollars, as host of the G20 this year.

“However, if the reforms proposed through a robust agenda are enacted, there is potential for a much larger economic payoff, many times this amount for the global economy which will of course flow through to Australia.

“The central issue is making sure this potential is realised.”