Alastair Campbell

So the G20 emerged out of one of the financial crises that was developing in Asia when Gordon Brown was chancellor.

And I remember Gordon being obsessed with this idea that, you know, G7 is not the place to have these debates.

We've got to bring in all these other countries.

But the politics then, so it's born out of one purpose and then it sort of develops in the way that these things do.

So it's now addressing everything.

So a very, very, very long communique that was written, the word Ukraine came in once.

Why?

Because you've got people there at the G20 who aren't in the same place as Europe, who aren't in the same place even as Trump.

They're much closer, much, much closer to the Russian line.

So there's diplomacy goes on.

But I think if you're South African and if you're Ramaphosa, I think you're thinking actually you did pretty well here.

The other thing that's really interesting, both about COP and the G20, is that they were both this year, for the first time in a while, held in places where protest happened.

It's possible.

Very interesting example of that in South Africa, where femicide and violence against women and girls is a really big thing, and where the government is often felt not to have taken it seriously enough.

So these protests, one of which was women in 15 towns and cities lying down for 15 minutes in protest at the 15 women murdered every day.

And Ramaphosa probably didn't want to be focusing on this so much, but in the end did declare that South Africa had a national emergency when it came to violence against women and girls.

So that's just a sign of how protest can have an impact, whether that gets followed through into policy change, attitude change.

But I think that was another reason why it was a good thing that the G20 happened.

I think from their perspective, it felt like a really big deal, even though Trump wasn't there.

And once they got past day one and people had stopped talking about Trump, the ones I talked to said they got a lot done.