Overview
- The Johannesburg text emphasizes the severity of climate change, backs renewable energy goals, and flags debt-service pressures on poorer countries.
- A South African presidency spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the declaration cannot be renegotiated and defended the approval process.
- Argentina formally declined to endorse the document, citing a breach of the G20’s consensus practice and objecting to how the Middle East conflict was framed.
- An unnamed senior U.S. official criticized the process as shameful, noting the forum’s tradition of issuing only consensual outcomes.
- South Africa rejected a U.S. plan to send a chargé d’affaires for the presidency handover, and both President Donald Trump and Argentina’s President Javier Milei skipped the summit.