CARBIS BAY – G7 leaders yesterday struck a united front, in a United States-led summit call to arms that took aim at China and Russia.
In a final communique issued at their first physical summit in nearly two years, the leaders of the elite club largely hewed to US President Joe Biden’s push to regain the West’s cohesion after Donald Trump’s tumultuous tenure.
At a G7 news conference before he headed on to a Nato summit and showdown talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden said his fellow leaders agreed “America is back at the table and fully engaged”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, host of the summit in southwest England, had described Biden as a “big breath of fresh air” and told reporters that the G7 stood united anew in its “democratic values”.
Angela Merkel, attending her last G7 as German chancellor, meanwhile said Biden had brought “new momentum” to resolving the world's problems at the three-day summit.
But the pledge to deliver 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines for poorer nations was panned by campaigners, who said it fell far short of the 11 billion doses needed to end a pandemic that has claimed nearly four million lives and wrecked economies around the globe.
India and South Africa, who took part in the G7 talks as guests, had pressed for the gathering to waive intellectual property rights on Western vaccines. But Britain and Germany were notable holdouts.
Likewise, the G7’s pledges to deliver more aid for countries at the sharp end of climate change, and to phase out fossil fuel investments, were decried as too little, too late ahead of a UN summit in November.
Meanwhile, the G7 also took a swipe at Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, repeating criticism that it saddles less powerful nations with crippling debt.
The group also risked inflaming tensions further by pressing China to let experts from the World Health Organisation further investigate how Covid-19 first emerged.
Biden has ordered US intelligence agencies to report back on whether it came from an animal source or from a laboratory accident. – AFP, June 14, 2021
