FALMOUTH (England): The Group of Seven leaders aim to end their first summit in two years with a punchy set of promises Sunday, including vaccinating the world against coronavirus, making huge corporations pay their fair share of taxes and tackling climate change with a blend of technology and money.
They want to show that international cooperation is back after the upheavals caused by the pandemic and the unpredictability of former US President Donald Trump.
And they want to convey that the club of wealthy democracies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — is a better friend to poorer nations than authoritarian rivals such as China.
But it was uncertain how firm the group’s commitments will be on coronavirus vaccines, the economy and the environment when the leaders issue their final communique.
Also unclear was whether all of the leaders would back the United States’ call to chastise China for repressing its Uyghur minority and other abuses.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, wanted the three-day meeting to fly the flag for a “Global Britain,” his government’s initiative to give the midsized country outsized influence when it comes to global problem-solving.
Brexit cast a shadow over that goal during the summit on the coast of southwest England.
European Union leaders and US President Joe Biden voiced concerns about problems with new UK-EU trade rules that have heightened tensions in Northern Ireland.
But overall, the mood has been positive: The leaders smiled for the cameras on the beach at cliff-fringed Carbis Bay, a village and resort that became a traffic-clogged fortress for the meeting.
The last G-7 summit was in France in 2019, with last year’s event in the United States scuttled by the pandemic.
The leaders mingled with Queen Elizabeth II at a royal reception on their first evening, and were served steak and lobster at a beach barbecue after watching an aeronautic display by the Royal Air Force Red Arrows on their second.
America’s allies were visibly relieved to have the US back as an engaged international player after the “America First” policy of the Trump administration.
“The United States is back, and democracies of the world are standing together,” Biden said as he arrived in the UK on the first foreign trip of his 5-month-old presidency.
After the G-7 summit, the president will have tea with the queen on Sunday, attend a NATO summit in Brussels on Monday and hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.
At the G-7, Johnson described Biden as a “breath of fresh air.” French President Emmanuel Macron, after speaking one-to-one with Biden, said, “It’s great to have a US president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.” The re-energised G-7 made ambitious declarations during their meetings about girls’ education, preventing future pandemics and using the finance system to fund green growth.
Above all, they vowed to share vaccine doses with less well-off nations that urgently need them.
Johnson said the group would pledge at least 1 billion doses, with half of that coming from the United States and 100 million from Britain.
Public health advocates said much more than just doses was needed, including money and logistical help to get shots delivered in poorer countries.
World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended the vaccine pledge but said it’s not enough.
To truly end the pandemic, he said, 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of the world’s population by mid-2022.
“We need more and we need them faster,” Tedros said.
Climate change is a key focus of the leaders’ final day of talks on Sunday, and the group is expected to announce new financing measures to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions.
The “Build Back Better for the World” plan will promise to offer financing for infrastructure — “from railways in Africa to wind farms in Asia” — to help speed up the global shift to renewable energy.
The plan is a response to China’s “belt and road” initiative, which has increased Beijing’s influence around the world.
Climate activists and analysts have said filling a USD 100 billion annual fund to help poor countries tackle the effects of global warming should be at the top of the G-7’s list.
All G-7 countries have pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but many environmentalists say that will be too little, too late.
Naturalist David Attenborough, who was to address the leaders by video, warned that humanity is “on the verge of destabilizing the entire planet.” “If that is so, then the decisions we make this decade — in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations — are the most important in human history,” Attenborough said.
Max Lawson, head of inequality policy for Oxfam International, welcomed plans to boost investment to help poor countries reduce their carbon footprints.
But he said “it doesn’t help the poor people that are being hit by climate change right now.” “So, yes, it’s probably a good thing but is it enough? Absolutely not,” he said.
Large crowds of surfers and kayakers took to the sea in a mass protest Saturday to urge better protections for the world’s oceans, while thousands chanted and beat drums as they marched outside the summit’s media center in Falmouth.
“G-7 is all greenwashing,” the protesters sang.
“We’re drowning in promises, now’s the time to act.” The leaders’ final communique is also expected to formally embrace placing a global minimum tax of at least 15 per cent on large multinational companies to stop corporations from using tax havens to avoid taxes.
The minimum rate was championed by the US, and dovetails with the aim of Biden — and Johnson — to focus the summit on ways the democracies can collaborate to build a more inclusive, fair global economy and to compete with rising autocracies like China.
White House officials also said that Biden wants the G-7 leaders to speak in a single voice against the forced labour practices targeting China’s Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities.
Biden hopes the denunciation will be part of a joint statement Sunday, but some European allies are reluctant to split so forcefully with Beijing.
Non-G-7 nations India, South Korea, Australia and South Africa were invited to attend as guests to bolster the group’s support for fellow democracies.