G20 Economies Have Tools for Green Recovery — They Just Aren’t Using Them Yet

This briefing by the World Resources Institute analyzes the alignment of G20 COVID-19 recovery spending with the Paris Agreement. It argues that G20 nations have largely ignored the climate crisis in their recovery packages, favoring carbon-intensive solutions over clean energy, and proposes a typology of five policy levers—monetary, financial/real-economy, fiscal, public finance, and information instruments—that governments can use to align finance flows with climate goals.

• G20 countries have prioritized carbon-intensive investments over clean energy in their COVID-19 recovery and response packages, allocating $262 billion to fossil fuels compared to $67 billion for clean energy.
• WRI research identifies five policy levers available to governments to align finance flows with the Paris Agreement: monetary policy, financial and real-economy policies and regulations, fiscal policy and budget support, public finance, and information instruments.
• Analysis of G20 recovery packages between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021, reveals that countries are using only a small subset of available Paris-aligned tools and often prefer short-term, business-as-usual interventions, such as liquidity support for carbon-intensive industries without climate conditions.
• There is a significant gap in investments for climate adaptation and resilience within G20 recovery packages; only four countries explicitly included these measures, focusing primarily on the water, agriculture, and disaster risk management sectors.

APA

World Resources Institute (2021). G20 Economies Have Tools for Green Recovery — They Just Aren’t Using Them Yet. https://www.wri.org/insights/g20-economies-green-recovery-covid-19

Chicago

World Resources Institute. G20 Economies Have Tools for Green Recovery — They Just Aren’t Using Them Yet. 2021. https://www.wri.org/insights/g20-economies-green-recovery-covid-19.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=G20 Economies Have Tools for Green Recovery — They Just Aren’t Using Them Yet |date=11 November 2021 |url=https://www.wri.org/insights/g20-economies-green-recovery-covid-19 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2021g20, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{G20 Economies Have Tools for Green Recovery — They Just Aren’t Using Them Yet}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2021}, month = nov, url = {https://www.wri.org/insights/g20-economies-green-recovery-covid-19}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }