The G20 Summit kicks off with a focus on COVID-19 and global climate change

According to the European Union News Agency quoted by the European Network, on October 30, local time, the G20 summit was held in Rome, Italy, in a combination of online and offline, and the two-day summit will focus on major issues such as the crown epidemic, promoting economic recovery and responding to global climate change.

Infographic: International Media Center, 13th G20 Summit. Photo by China News Service reporter Sheng Jiapeng

The theme of this year's G20 summit, "People, Planet, Prosperity," included that shortages and growing problems in global supply chains could slow the pace of economic recovery, as well as debt issues in the poorest countries and efforts to vaccinate the world against COVID-19. Leaders of many countries and heads of international organizations delivered speeches at the opening ceremony of the summit, calling on the international community to strengthen cooperation in responding to the COVID-19 epidemic and equitably distributing COVID-19 vaccines.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, chaired by the G20, welcomed the participation of world leaders at the opening ceremony and delivered a speech, calling on countries to strengthen cooperation to provide COVID-19 vaccines to least developed countries and promote the equitable distribution of vaccines around the world. Draghi said 70 percent of the world's richest countries are already vaccinated, creating large differences in COVID-19 vaccination rates between developed and poor countries, which is morally unacceptable. He expects that by mid-2022, the global reach of 7 adults can be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who attended the meeting by video, called on participating countries to speed up the issue of mutual recognition and vaccine certificates. He said vaccines are not available to all countries in need because of protectionism and unfair competition in some countries, as well as a lack of mutual recognition of vaccines. He noted that the World Health Organization's decision to approve vaccines should be accelerated.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on the G20 to take decisive steps to bridge the trust gap, starting with tackling vaccine inequalities. He said the G20-led COVID-19 vaccination programme had not been achieved due to disagreements. Because coordinated global action has taken a back seat, it has been replaced by vaccine hoarding and nationalism.

Guterres said he supports a new global COVID-19 vaccination strategy launched by the World Health Organization to vaccinate 40 percent of people in all countries by the end of the year and 70 percent by mid-2022. He urged G20 member states to fully support the strategy and coordinate action to succeed, saying it was the only way to end the epidemic.

Addressing climate change is also one of the main topics of this summit. Leaders have recognized that by the middle of this century, efforts will be stepped up to limit the increase in global temperature to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. (Bo Yuan, Antonietta Pitreli)

Source: China News Network