The G20, the international organisation of the 19 largest economies, the EU, and the African Union,* is led by a different country each year and each uses their presidency of the body to focus on a set of goals. These are usually what you'd expect: something positive sounding but vague headlining an agenda around global trade. 

However, in 2024, Brazil used their presidency to start an unheard of push for a global minimum tax rate for the richest. Specifically, they adopted a proposal from French economist Gabriel Zucman to establish a global 2% tax on the wealth of global billionaires. This global approach would be one of the only ways to actually tax this global new super-elite, who have avoidance down to a fine art. It led to other countries joining the proposal, particularly France, Spain, and South Africa, who also used their 2025 G20 presidency to continue championing the idea.

Just at the beginning of November, South Africa released a stark and comprehensive new G20 report on worldwide inequality, finding that the richest 1% had taken 41% of all new wealth created since 2000. The new World Inequality Report concurs, finding last week that just 0.001% of the world's population holds three times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity.

As a global system, it's clear that this level of inequality is unsustainable. That's why the often quite dry G20 meetings became, for two years, an unexpected source of global hope and excitement as movements and national delegations genuinely gathered to discuss coordinated action on the obscene inequality of the global economy. Such things are possible!

Unfortunately, sometimes you take two steps forward, and sometimes...