G7 nations agree on supplying 1 billion vaccines
World’s richest countries pledge to help poorer nations fight Covid
Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations staked their claim yesterday to leading the world out of the coronavirus pandemic and crisis, pledging more than one billion coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer nations, vowing to help developing countries grow while fighting climate change and backing a minimum tax on multinational firms.
At the group’s first face-to-face meeting in two years, the leaders dangled promises of support for global health, green energy, infrastructure and education.
The leaders wanted 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 wanted 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.
What the leaders said
This isn’t about imposing our values on the rest of the world. What we as the G-7 need to do is demonstrate the benefits of democracy and freedom and human rights to the rest of the world.”
Speaking at the end of the three-day summit in southwest England, US President Joe Biden, who was making his first foreign trip as leader, said it was an “extraordinary, collaborative and productive meeting.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit’s host, praised the “fantastic degree of harmony” among the group.
Johnson said the G-7 would demonstrate the value of democracy and human rights to the rest of the world and help “the world’s poorest countries to develop themselves in a way that is clean and green and sustainable.”
“It’s not good enough for us to just rest on our laurels and talk about how important those values are,” he told reporters after the three-day meeting on the Cornwall coast. “And this isn’t about imposing our values on the rest of the world. What we as the G-7 need to do is demonstrate the benefits of democracy and freedom and human rights to the rest of the world.”
But health and environmental campaigners were distinctly unimpressed by the details in the leaders’ final communique.
“This G-7 summit will live on in infamy,” said Max Lawson, the head of inequality policy at the international aid group Oxfam. “Faced with the biggest health emergency in a century and a climate catastrophe that
Boris Johnson | British prime minister
is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times.’’
Despite Johnson’s call to “vaccinate the world” by the end of 2022 the promise of 1 billion doses for vaccine-hungry countries — coming both directly and through the international Covax programme — falls far short of the 11 billion doses the World Health Organisation said is needed to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of the world’s population and truly end the pandemic.
Half of the billion-dose pledge is coming from the United States and 100 million from Britain. Canada said it also would give 100 million doses, and France pledged 60 million.
The vaccines are due to be
delivered by the end of 2022, but Biden said the leaders were clear that the commitments they made to donate doses wouldn’t be the end. The US president said getting shots into arms around the world was a “gigantic, logistical effort” and the goal may not be achieved until 2023.
Global tax
The G-7 also backed a 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 United States and dovetails with the aim of President Joe Biden to focus the summit on ways the democracies can support a fairer global economy by working
together. Biden also wanted to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing and strongly call out China’s “nonmarket policies and human rights abuses.”
The language on China in the G-7 leaders’ communique from the meeting was more muted than the United States has used, but Biden said he was satisfied. In the communique, the group said: “With regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy.’’
The leaders also said they would promote their values by calling on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of committing serious human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority, and in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong. Yet Brexit cast a shadow over that goal during the summit 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 was positive: The leaders smiled for the cameras on the beach Carbis Bay, a village and resort that became a trafficclogged fortress for the meeting.