As the group of the world’s largest economies and biggest emitters, G20 countries are central to implementing solutions to the climate emergency. This discussion paper assesses to what extent they are setting climate mitigation targets that are ambitious enough and/or meet their fair share of global emissions reductions consistent with limiting global heating to 1.5°C. It applies three different methodologies to assess their pledges. Despite some differences between these methodologies, the paper finds that the G20 countries – both collectively, and almost all of them individually – are failing to achieve their fair share of ambitious global mitigation required to limit global heating to 1.5°C, regardless of which assessment methodology is applied. Additionally, the assessment shows that the high-income G20 member countries are pledging to do a much smaller fraction of their fair share as compared to the middle-income countries.

The G7 countries among the G20, in particular, appear to now be focusing their attention on the increase of ambition of middle-income and low-income countries while not recognising the need to also substantially increase the ambition in their own 2030 pledges. Additionally, the G7 countries continue to fail to recognise the need to commit to individual long-term climate finance to low and middle-income countries, at a scale much higher than what they currently provide, to enable rapid and just transitions to climate-resilient and low-carbon societies powered by renewable energy. This analysis highlights that G20 countries must both urgently, and before COP28 in December 2023, raise the ambition of their pledges for action by 2030, ramp up their provision of international climate finance and increase their international cooperation and support.