The Group of Seven (G7) richest democracies are set to meet at Carbis Bay Hotel, a seaside resort in Cornwall, UK between June 11-13. The countries will sit together with a major focus on Covid-19 vaccination and supporting middle, low-income countries along with showing fresh resort to tackle the menace of climate change.
The G7 will see heads of states from the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy come together to discuss the global challenges facing the world. The meeting that is dominated by western nations will see US President Joe Biden advance his multilateral agenda in the backdrop of rising China and an assertive Russia.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to participate in the summit virtually as India continues to recover from the second wave of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
A global menace: Tackling climate change
One of the key agenda to dominate the talks at the G7 summit will be climate change as countries reassert their willingness to reduce the global temperature by 1.5-degree celsius. Ahead of the G7 meeting, environment ministers of these countries have agreed that they will deliver climate targets in line with limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius. They also agreed to cut direct funding of coal-based power stations in poorer nations by the end of this year. The meeting of the environment ministers had taken place in May.
Ahead of his departure for the ambitious meet, Biden in an opinion column for The Washington Post had said, “This is a defining question of our time: Can democracies come together to deliver real results for our people in a rapidly changing world? Will the democratic alliances and institutions that shaped so much of the last century prove their capacity against modern-day threats and adversaries? I believe the answer is yes.”
Meanwhile, a recent study by the Swiss Re Institute indicates that the economies of G7 countries will shrink twice as much as they did during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research showed that the world’s biggest industrial economies are projected to lose 8.5 per cent of GDP annually, or nearly $5 trillion, by 2050 if leaders do not enact plans to tackle it. The report said that if nothing is done and temperatures rise by 3.2 degrees Celcius by mid-century the global economy would be 18 per cent smaller.
