G7 summit: consensus but few concrete measures?
The G7 summit which took place in Cornwall, England, after having been cancelled in 2020 came to an end on Sunday. Hopes were high that far-reaching resolutions on climate protection and pandemic control would be reached, especially since participants had already agreed on a global minimum corporate tax before the summit. But according to most commentators the high expectations were not fulfilled.
Substantive results at last
The Irish Times is impressed with the results of the summit:
“The G7 was meatier and more substantive than many of its previous talk-shop incarnations. The welcome US return to the multilateralist fold saw multi-billion dollar pledges on tackling coronavirus globally - one billion doses of vaccine for developing countries - a pre-summit deal on a shared approach to corporate taxation, and the endorsement of a western counterweight to China's Belt and Road international infrastructure initiative.”
Europe has a problem with Biden's course
The summit remained more or less divided in its attitude towards Beijing, Hospodářské noviny states:
“According to the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, 60 percent of 585 European companies surveyed want to expand their activities in China. This attitude was reflected in Cornwall in the cautious attitude of the European leaders, especially the outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Europeans don't want to be pushed into a situation where they have to choose between the US and China.”
Paper is patient
The Frankfurter Rundschau reacts with scepticism to the announcement that CO2 emissions are to be almost halved by 2030 compared with 1990:
“If the bloc of countries that produces almost half of the world's economic output seriously aims to do this, that's impressive. However, it's a well-known fact that you can't believe everything that's written in summit papers. The question is whether the G7 will consistently take the right measures to make the 2020s a climate decade. They really have to radically cut their subsidies for fossil fuels to zero now. The G7 (without Trump) has already announced this umpteen times, but never implemented it. And the gap is currently also becoming obvious: in the coronavirus aid programmes, more money has flowed into fossil fuels than into green energies. A wasted opportunity.”
Still no proper anti-Covid strategy
The promised vaccine deliveries to developing countries are just as insufficient as Biden's proposal in May to suspend patent protection, Le Monde complains:
“This proposal has set the stage for an unfortunate transatlantic controversy over the relative merits of vaccine sharing, technology transfer and patent suspension. Yet all these measures are complementary and should be the subject of a coherent and common strategy. Donating one billion doses of vaccine deliverable within the next 12 months does not constitute such a strategy, nor does it make vaccine a 'global public good'. If there is one mission that this G7 should set itself, it is to rid the planet of this devastating pandemic through equitable vaccine distribution and production.”
Discouraging and bitter prospects
On the initiative of Joe Biden, the G7 have agreed on a sort of Marshall Plan for poorer countries - the Build Back Better World project. This will hardly be to China's and Russia's liking, Adevărul believes:
“A legitimate question is whether such heightened tensions could lead to the virtual dissolution of the G20 format with China and Russia. ... How will they react? How will the smaller and more dependent countries align themselves. Because like it or not, they will have to enter the supply-demand game that could well end in a new kind of global cold war. If this is what it has come to, if what follows is a world symbolically divided into 'our vaccine/the others' vaccine', the prospects are bitter and discouraging.”