Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations have pledged more than 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer countries, vowed to help developing countries grow their economies while fighting climate change and agreed to challenge China’s “non-market economic practices” and call out Beijing for rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Speaking at the end of a G7 leaders’ summit in south-west England, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday praised the “fantastic degree of harmony” among the re-energised group, which met in person for the first time in two years.
The leaders wanted to show international cooperation was 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 тАФ Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States тАФ is a better friend to poorer nations than authoritarian rivals such as China.
Mr Johnson said the G7 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 3-day meeting on the Cornwall coast.
“And this isn’t about imposing our values on the rest of the world. What we as the G7 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 meeting communique.
“This G7 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 is destroying our planet, they have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times.”
Despite Mr Johnson’s call to “vaccinate the world” by the end of 2022, the promise of 1 billion doses for vaccine-hungry countries тАФ coming both directly and through the international COVAX program тАФ falls far short of the 11 billion doses the World Health Organisation said was 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.
The G7 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.
“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 group said in its communique, published on Sunday.
The leaders 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.
Mr Johnson, the summit’s host, wanted the three-day meeting to fly the flag for a “Global Britain,” his government’s push to give the midsized country outsized global influence.
Yet Brexit cast a shadow over that goal during the summit on the coast of south-west England. 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 at cliff-fringed Carbis Bay, a village and resort that became a traffic-clogged fortress for the meeting. The last G7 summit was in France in 2019, with last year’s event in the United States scuttled by the pandemic.
The leaders mingled with Queen Elizabeth II at a royal reception on their first evening and were served steak and lobster at a beach barbecue after watching an aeronautic display by the Royal Air Force Red Arrows on their second.
America’s allies were visibly relieved to have the US back as an engaged international player after the “America First” policy of the Trump administration.
“The United States is back, and democracies of the world are standing together,” Mr Biden said as he arrived in the UK on the first foreign trip of his five-month-old presidency.
After the G7 summit, the president will have tea with the queen on Sunday, attend a NATO summit in Brussels on Monday and hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.
At the G7, Mr Johnson described Mr Biden as a “breath of fresh air.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, after speaking one-to-one with Mr Biden, said, “It’s great to have a US president part of the club and very willing to cooperate.”
Protestors demonstrate during G7 climate talks
The re-energised G7 made ambitious declarations during meetings about girls’ education, preventing future pandemics and financing greener infrastructure globally
On climate change, the “Build Back Better for the World” plan promises to offer financing for infrastructure тАФ “from railways in Africa to wind farms in Asia” тАФ to help speed up the global shift to renewable energy. The plan is a response to China’s “belt and road” initiative, which has increased Beijing’s worldwide influence.
All G7 countries have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but many environmentalists say that will be too little, too late.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is attending the summit as a guest along with several other middle power nations’ leaders, on Sunday reaffirmed the country’s commitment to a looser target to “achieve net-zero emissions as soon as possible, preferably by 2050”.
Naturalist David Attenborough addressed the leaders by video on Sunday, warning that humanity was “on the verge of destabilising the entire planet.”
“If that is so, then the decisions we make this decade тАФ in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations тАФ are the most important in human history,” the veteran documentary filmmaker said.
Large crowds of surfers and kayakers took to the sea in a mass protest Saturday to urge better protections for the world’s oceans, while thousands beat drums as they marched outside the summit’s media centre in Falmouth.
“G-7 is all greenwashing,” the protesters sang.
“We’re drowning in promises, now’s the time to act.”
The communique’s language on China was more muted than the United States had sought.
White House officials also said Biden wanted the G7 leaders to speak in a single voice against the forced labour practices targeting China’s Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities.
Canada, Britain and France largely endorsed Mr Biden’s position on China, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitancy, according to two senior Biden administration officials.
