G-20 Begins Calling for More Vaccines for Poor Countries – CBS17.com

ROM (AP) – The leaders of the world’s economic powers attended the first personal summit since the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday, which featured climate change, the economic recovery from COVID-19 and the global minimum corporate tax rate.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi welcomed the group of 20 heads of state to Rome’s cloud-like Nuvola Congress Center in the EUR district from the fascist era, which was isolated from the rest of the capital. The opening session on Saturday focused on global health and the economy, with a meeting on the sidelines between US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss the next steps on the Iranian front Discuss nuclear program.

Host leader Draghi opened the forum with a keen call for increased efforts to get vaccines to the world’s least wealthy countries.

Draghi stressed that 70% of the people in the rich countries are vaccinated, but only 3% of the vaccination in the poorest countries, calling this “morally unacceptable”.

Draghi called for a new commitment to multilateral cooperation: “The more we face all of our challenges, the clearer it becomes that multilateralism is the best answer to the problems we face today,” he said. “In many ways, it’s the only possible answer.”

Italy hopes the G-20 will make important commitments from countries that represent 80% of the world economy – and are responsible for roughly the same amount of global carbon emissions – ahead of the UN climate change conference, which kicks off in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday .

Most of the leaders who are in Rome will travel to Glasgow once the G-20 is over. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping attend from afar.

On the eve of the meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the Glasgow meeting was in danger of failing because of the still tepid pledges of the major polluters, and urged the G-20 leaders to maintain “dangerous levels of mistrust” among themselves and with developing countries to overcome nations.

“Let’s be clear – there is a serious risk that Glasgow won’t deliver,” Guterres told reporters in Rome.

A recent UN environmental report concluded that if fully implemented, announcements by dozens of countries to target “net zero†emissions by 2050 could limit global temperature increases to 2.2 degrees Celsius (4 F). That’s closer, but still above the less stringent goal of the Paris Climate Agreement of keeping the temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) compared to pre-industrial times.

The UN chief also blamed geopolitical rifts for hampering a global vaccination plan to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, saying measures have “pushed vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism into the background”.

However, the G-20 are likely to celebrate a global minimum corporate tax deal. The G20 leaders are expected to officially reaffirm their pledge to introduce a minimum global tax rate of 15% by 2023.

The move has been hailed by White House officials as a game changer that would generate at least $ 60 billion in new revenue annually in the United States – a flow of money that could help support an almost $ 3 trillion social welfare service. and to partially pay for the infrastructure package that President Joe Biden is looking for. Adoption in the United States is critical because so many multinational companies are headquartered there.

But Biden is struggling to come to an agreement with members of his own party about what to include in the massive spending plan, let alone how he will be paid. The president’s efforts to reach an agreement on U.S. legislation were not expected to be a central part of Biden’s talks with his counterparts, White House officials said.

Biden is also expected to raise concerns about an imbalance in supply and demand in global energy markets, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. The official said Biden would underscore the importance of greater stability in both oil and gas markets for the sake of a global economy hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. US oil prices are near 7-year highs.

The summit could be an opportunity for dialogue because it includes delegations from the major energy producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, the major consumers in Europe and China, and the US, which are both. So far, Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and allies including Russia known as OPEC + have ignored Biden’s requests to grow production faster than the current pace of 400,000 barrels a day per day until next year.