The leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies gather over the weekend in Rome for the first face-to-face G20 summit since the start of the pandemic, with a packed agenda that includes covid-19, economic recovery and climate change.
President Joe Biden wants to emphasize the message that “the United States is back” after four years of diplomatic polemics with Donald Trump.
The absence of Russian presidents Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping, who will participate via video, reduces expectations of the meeting, a forum between allies and rivals of different dimensions and power.
Today, the G20 is made up of South Africa, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, South Korea, United States, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey and European Union.
The presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed their presence.
In the case of Argentina, the event is particularly important for the restructuring of its debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Fernández will have a meeting with the managing director of the organization, Kristalina Georgieva.
The G20 countries represent nearly 90% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), two-thirds of the world’s population and 80% of international trade.
– Complex challenges –
The central focus of the Rome meeting will be climate change. The meeting takes place on the eve of the start of the crucial COP26 conference, which will start on Monday (1) in Glasgow, Scotland, and which aims to adopt historic decisions to halt the rise in the planet’s temperature.
For Antony Froggatt, a researcher at the think tank Chatham House, if the G20 does not commit to limiting the increase in the planet’s temperature to up to +1.5°C and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, “there will be no any hope” of fulfilling the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce the greenhouse effect.
The G20 countries are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and many of them are reluctant to reduce their emissions.
China has set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, but India, which insists on its status as a developing country and will have the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rome, has not made a precise commitment.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi considers that the meeting “marks the return of multilateralism, after the dark years of isolationism and confinement linked to the health crisis.”
“We are going to discuss the most complex challenges of our time with the objective of finding ambitious and shared solutions”, he summed up.
Leaders are expected to sign an agreement to adopt a 15% minimum tax on multinationals, in addition to discussing post-pandemic recovery and its risks, including the uneven distribution of covid-19 vaccines.
Despite the lack of expectations for new commitments on anti-covid-19 vaccines, Italy struggles to provide more help to low-income countries with the distribution of the drugs.
“The global solidarity to face this pandemic is very small”, says Emma Ross, researcher at Chatham House.
“The G7 didn’t measure up to the circumstances, so all eyes are on the G20,” he added.
– Francisco’s diplomacy –
Many leaders will arrive in Rome on Friday (29) for bilateral meetings and audiences with Pope Francis.
Practicing Catholic, the American president, Joe Biden, will be received by the pontiff, as well as the president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, and the prime minister of India – the latter, on Saturday (30).
With a neighborhood declared a “red zone” of maximum security and an imposing mobilization of security forces, Rome will be armored.
Nearly 500 soldiers were mobilized for the G20 meeting, which will take place in an ultra-modern peripheral neighborhood, the so-called EUR, imagined by dictator Benito Mussolini as the “capital of the empire”.
In parallel, workers’ marches were called. Authorities have announced that snipers will be deployed in sensitive areas and have installed sanitary controls for the coronavirus.
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