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Bonn, Germany, 25 May 2023 – The three-day-long final round of policy discussions on climate and the environment among the world’s most influential economies ended on Tuesday, May 23.

The 3rd Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group Meeting, of the Group of Twenty (G20), organized under the G20 India Presidency, convened in Mumbai to address pressing environmental challenges, particularly the strategies to reduce land degradation globally by 50 percent before 2040, an ambition that the Group set out for itself in 2020.

G20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies, which together account for 85 percent of global Gross Domestic Product, 75 percent of international trade and two-thirds of the world’s population.

The Working Group meeting in Mumbai started drafting the communique that G20 Environment Ministers will use as the basis for their negotiations when they meet in July, in Chennai, India. Consultations on the draft were expected to continue after the Working Group session held in Mumbai.

In addition, the ministerial meeting in July is expected to discuss and agree on further action and commitments that the G20 Heads of State could carry out in fulfilment of their ambition.

Dr. Muralee Thummarukudy, Director of the G20 Global Land Initiative Coordination Office, which the leaders also established to ensure progress is made, participated in the Working Group meeting in Mumbai.

The first two sessions of the Working Group under the Indian Presidency took place in Bengaluru in February and in Gandhinagar in March.

G20 stakeholders, including civil society organization, can contribute actively to the work of different the working group meetings through Engagement Groups, such as youth (Y20), women (W20), business (B20), global non-governmental organizations (C20) and parliamentarians (P20).

The Climate Sustainability Working Group (CSWG) was first established in 2018 during the Argentine Presidency, while the Environment Deputies Meeting (EDM) was launched in 2019 under Japan’s leadership. These two groups were entrusted with the responsibility of tackling pressing environmental and climate issues, including resource efficiency, circular economy, ocean health, marine litter, coral reefs, land degradation, biodiversity loss, water resource management, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

G20 members established the G20 Global Land Initiative and its coordination office in 2020 during the Saudi Arabia Presidency. The Initiative Coordination Office (ICO) is hosted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification based in Bonn, Germany. For more information contact the ICO via https://g20land.org/contact-us/ or email by email at g20ico@unccd.int.

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