After summits dominated by governments, solutions will be driven by companies

Leaders from some of the largest and most powerful nations in the world gathered this past week in Rome for the G-20 summit and in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

High on their agenda were the most important issues facing the world today: Economic recovery, COVID and climate change. These summits really at their core represent an opportunity to make meaningful commitments. But those commitments mean little if they are not fully implemented. Implementing those ambitious goals is going to require a lot of help from the private sector — which has played an increasingly important role in recent years in responding to climate change and other global crises.

Let’s start with what summits of this sort can accomplish. They are first and foremost, action-forcing events. The high-profile events mobilize the mechanisms of action in governments to develop “deliverables” for the leaders to announce at the meeting’s conclusion. These initial outcomes should not be discounted. Take the global agreement on corporate taxation, for example, a landmark achievement that was just formalized at the G20.

As the U.S. “sherpa,” or lead negotiator, for several of these summits, I personally know the potential, as well as the limitations, of what these fora can accomplish. While staff will have spent months haggling over the very verbs that will go into the communiques issued at the conclusion of the conclave, the leaders will focus on setting the general direction for responses to consequential common challenges.   

But these summits can also be an effective avenue for personal diplomacy to build new bridges or repair old ones. Perhaps the most valuable commodity in international relations is a leader’s time. Having over 20 of them captive in a room together, for a concerted period of time is a rare opportunity. This is where President Biden might have been at his best, informally engaging fellow presidents and prime ministers, working the room, as he has for decades in the Senate, as vice president and now as president. The agreement with the EU on steel and aluminum tariffs is a case in point. 

I believe our counterparts from other countries are walking away with more confidence in America’s global role and general reliability after summits in Rome and Glasgow. But to continue to make progress in restoring confidence, we must now ensure that these and other commitments are fully implemented — by legislation and executive action where necessary, supplemented by the engagement of the private sector.

The looming question remains as to how much we can truly get done on climate change. We need to consider climate activist Greta Thunberg’s critique of these global gatherings as just, “blah, blah, blah.” Both Rome and Glasgow were important opportunities to use the peer pressure of leaders and the spotlight of international attention to encourage governments to raise their level of ambition in dealing with climate change — and urgently. 

But let’s be clear — climate change will not be solved in Glasgow. The global gathering is a potentially important milestone in an ongoing process, one that will require continuous engagement marked by step-by-step progress. 

As critical as governments are in addressing global challenges, the private sector has shown that it plays an increasingly important role as well. As we saw when President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord, many companies — together with many mayors and governors here in the United States — continued to take action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to make progress in dealing with climate change. 

Many businesses have equally acted to address the global implications of COVID, including by promoting the equitable distribution of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines to developing countries.  And all of us also have a role to play in ensuring that the economic recovery is more inclusive — in all its forms, from furthering diversity and equity at all levels in the workplace to using our tools to bring more people into the digital economy. 

Biden would be wise to leverage the resources, the innovation and increasingly, the commitment of companies to address these major issues. The president’s message should be that, in addition to the federal government, we have myriad partners stepping forward for the United States, including the public and private sector. 

The most difficult work of these summits really began when Air Force One landed back in Washington. If Biden can rally the support of Congress and businesses around the goals set at the G20 and COP26, then we are likely to see real progress over the next three years. Meeting that challenge would truly send a strong signal to a weary world that American leadership is back and that all of us are here to stay the course.

Mike Froman, a former U.S. Trade Representative, is vice chairman and president, Strategic Growth at Mastercard.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Nov. 5 at 4:44 p.m.