G-20 opens with call for more vaccines for poor countries

Rome: Italy’s Premier Mario Draghi opened a conference of the world’s powerhouse economies with a sharp call to pick up the pace in getting vaccines to poor countries, calling the gaping global COVID-19 vaccine gap “morally unacceptable.”

Draghi, the host for the two-day Group of 20 summit in Rome, said Saturday that only 3% of people in the world’s poorest countries are vaccinated, while 70% in rich countries have had at least one shot.

The call for more collective help for low-income countries sounded a theme running through the summit, which faces a global economy recovering at different speeds. Climate change, vaccines, recovery, international taxation are all themes occupying leaders holding their first in-person summit since the pandemic took hold.

Draghi welcomed the Group of 20 heads of state to Rome’s Nuvola cloud-like convention center in the Fascist-era EUR neighborhood, which was sealed off from the rest of the capital. Saturday’s opening session was focused on global health and the economy.

Rich countries have used vaccines and stimulus spending to restart economic activity, leaving the risk that developing countries that account for much of global growth will remain behind due to low vaccinations and financing difficulties. European Union leaders will meet off-site with African leaders in efforts to further support the continent’s poorest economies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Friday he expects the G-20 to confirm an additional $100 billion to support Africa’s economies.

The money would be provided via the reallocation of part of $650 billion worth of special drawing rights, a foreign exchange tool used to help finance imports issued by the International Monetary Fund. The idea is for countries that don’t need the help to reallocated their special drawing rights to those that do.

Participants were to include African Union President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda President Paul Kagame. The heads of state of South Africa and Senegal, Cyril Ramaphosa and Macky Sall, will take part via videoconference, the French presidency said.

Italy is hoping the G-20 will secure key commitments from countries representing 80% of the global economy — and responsible for around the same amount of global carbon emissions — ahead of the U.N. climate conference that begins Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland.

Most of the heads of state and government who are in Rome will head to Glasgow as soon as the G-20 is over. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are participating remotely.

On the eve of the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the Glasgow meeting risked failure over the still-tepid commitments from big polluters, and challenged the G-20 leaders to overcome “dangerous levels of mistrust” among themselves and with developing nations.

“Let’s be clear — there is a serious risk that Glasgow will not deliver,? Guterres told reporters in Rome. A recent U.N. environment report concluded that announcements by dozens of countries to aim for “net-zero” emissions by 2050 could, if fully implemented, limit a global temperature rise to 2.2 degrees Celsius (4 F). That’s closer but still above the less stringent target agreed in the Paris climate accord of keeping the temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) compared with pre-industrial times.

The U.N. chief also blamed geopolitical divides for hampering a global vaccination plan to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, saying action “has taken a back seat to vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism.”

The G-20, though, will likely be a celebration of one agreement, on a global minimum corporate tax. The G-20 leaders are expected to formally affirm their commitment to establishing a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate by 2023, a measure aimed at preventing multinational companies from stashing profits in countries where they pay few or no taxes.

The move has been praised by White House officials as a “game-changer” that would create at least $60 billion in new revenue a year in the U.S. – a stream of cash that could help partially pay for a nearly $3 trillion social services and infrastructure package that President Joe Biden is seeking.

U.S. adoption is key because so many multinational companies are headquartered there. But Biden is struggling to come to an agreement with members of his own party on what will be included in the massive spending plan, not to mention how it will be paid for. The president’s struggles to come to terms on U.S. legislation were not expected to be a central part of Biden’s conversations with fellow leaders, White House officials said.

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

The summit could be an opportunity for dialogue because it includes delegations from major energy producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, major consumers in Europe and China, and the U.S., which is both. So far, Saudi-led OPEC and allies including Russia, dubbed OPEC+, have ignored Biden’s pleas to increase production faster than its current pace of 400,000 barrels per day each month into next year.