The central focus of the summit in Rome will be above all climate change.
The leaders of the 20 largest economies in the world meet this weekend in Rome for the first face-to-face G20 summit after the pandemic, with a loaded agenda that includes covid-19, economic recovery and climate change.
US President Joe Biden left for the Italian capital on Thursday to reiterate his message that “America is back” after four years marked by controversial Donald Trump diplomacy.
The absence of Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Chinese Xi Jinping, who will connect by video, lowers expectations for the summit, a forum between allies and rivals of different size and power.
It is currently made up of Germany, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, South Korea, the United States, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the European Union. .
Among the Latin Americans, the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be conspicuous by his absence, while the Argentine Alberto Fernández and the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro confirmed their presence.
For Argentina, the appointment is particularly important in the face of the restructuring of the debt with the International Monetary Fund, so it takes the opportunity to meet with its head, Kristalina Georgieva.
The G20 countries represent almost 90% of global GDP, two-thirds of the world’s population, and 80% of international trade.
Complex challenges
The central focus of the summit in Rome will be above all climate change, as it is held on the eve of the crucial COP26 conference that begins on Monday in Glasgow, Scotland, and which aims to make historic decisions to stop the increase in the temperature of the planet .
For Antony Froggatt, a researcher at the Chatham House institute, if the G20 does not commit to limit the increase in the planet’s temperature to 1.5 degrees and to be carbon neutral before 2050, “there is no hope” of meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement for the reduction of the greenhouse effect.
The G20 countries are responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally and several of them are reluctant to reduce emissions.
China has set a goal of 2060, but India, which insists on its status as a developing country and whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels to Rome, has not made a precise commitment.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi believes that the summit “marks the return of multilateralism, after the dark years of isolationism and confinement linked to the health crisis,” he said.
“We are going to discuss the most complex challenges of our times in order to find ambitious and shared solutions,” he summarized.
The leaders will have to sign an agreement to impose a minimum tax of 15 percent on multinationals and will have to discuss the post-pandemic recovery and its risks, including the unequal distribution of vaccines against covid-19.
Although no new commitments on covid-19 vaccines are expected, Italy is struggling to provide more aid to low-income countries through the distribution of vaccines.
“Global solidarity to face this pandemic has been very low,” said Emma Ross, a researcher with the Chatham House think tank.
“The G7 did not rise to the occasion, so everyone has their eyes towards the G20,” he stressed.
Francis’ diplomacy
Many leaders have gathered in Rome on Friday for a series of bilateral meetings and audiences with Pope Francis.
President Biden, a practicing Catholic, will be received by the pontiff on Friday, between confirmed papal audiences along with that of the president of South Korea, while he will receive the Indian leader on Saturday.
With a neighborhood declared a maximum security “red zone” and an imposing deployment of security forces, Rome will be armored.
Some 500 soldiers have been mobilized for the summit, which is held in an ultra-modern suburb, the so-called EUR, which the dictator Benito Mussolini devised as the capital of the empire.
At the same time, marches of workers in conflict have been called, snipers have been placed in sensitive areas and special health controls have been arranged for the coronavirus. (I)
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