This year’s G20 was recently hosted by South Africa and held in Johannesburg under the theme “Inclusive Growth for a Sustainable Future.” The 2025 Ocean20 (O20) Communiqué was released one week before the G20 Summit and outlined an ambitious plan for a fair, sustainable and inclusive ocean economy. It placed strong emphasis on leadership from the Global South, development that benefits local communities and decision-making that protects people and nature.

With the G20 Summit now concluded (23 November 2025), we can assess how much of this vision made it into the final political outcomes. The results are mixed: while there was real progress on some major international agreements, the G20 fell short on important issues such as ocean justice, offshore energy and deep-sea mining.

This year’s O20 Communiqué builds on important steps taken in 2024, when the 2024 Brazil G20 Leaders’ Declaration officially made the O20 a permanent part of the G20 process. That 2024 declaration supported the new High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement) and committed to creating a global, legally binding plastics treaty. It also emphasized the need for fair and accessible ocean finance and highlighted how vital healthy marine ecosystems are for the global economy and climate.

The 2025 O20 was co-hosted by South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF-SAEON) and the UN Global Compact. As the official G20 ocean-focused engagement group for 2025, it worked under the theme “Uniting for Ocean Sustainability: Advancing Cooperative Innovation and Partnerships.” Building on last year’s foundation, the 2025 Communiqué takes a stronger stance on ocean justice—calling for leadership from the Global South, meaningful community involvement and careful, precautionary approaches to managing the ocean.

The 2025 O20 text reaffirms the ocean’s role in climate resilience, biodiversity protection and human wellbeing, while emphasising cultural, social and economic connections. It calls for inclusive blue finance rooted in locally led development and it presses strongly for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining based on science, transparency and fair benefit sharing. These priorities are clear and substantive. Their influence on the G20 outcome, however, is limited.

The 2025 G20 Leaders’ Declaration did take forward several ocean and climate-relevant commitments. It reaffirmed the Paris Agreement, highlighted the need for urgent action to limit global warming and emphasised the alignment of national policies with national climate action plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). It urged swift and effective implementation of the BBNJ Agreement, welcomed the entry into force of the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and encouraged remaining WTO members to ratify it. It highlighted nature-based and ecosystem-based approaches for climate and biodiversity outcomes, including in coastal zones and reaffirmed that sustainable use of ocean resources underpins food and nutrition security. It also recognised that just transitions rely on integrated, equitable and well-financed approaches and underscored the role of concessional and blended finance in enabling energy and climate action.

Missing, however, are some of the O20’s core justice priorities: the G20 text does not reference a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining; it does not highlight offshore renewable energy (including offshore wind) as part of just energy transitions; and it does not foreground inclusive blue finance as a specific mechanism to support small-scale fishers, coastal communities or locally led ocean economies.

Looking ahead, the transition to two consecutive Global North Presidencies – the U.S. G20 Presidency in 2026 and the UK Presidency in 2027 – presents both opportunities and challenges.

Now we must ensure that the ambition expressed in the 2025 O20 Communiqué shapes the next phase of G20 implementation: rights-based governance, community-led action and accountable finance. It is essential that civil society, small-scale fishers, Indigenous Peoples and Youth continue to act not as observers, but as essential co-authors of the ocean future. Their leadership, lived experience and stewardship must guide policy agendas so that global commitments translate into equitable, enduring action for the ocean and the communities who depend on it.