G20 finalizes understanding on climate and vaccines – 10/31/2021

After a sleepless night and morning of intense negotiations, the G20 reached a final understanding and establishes a commitment to ensure that 70% of each country’s population is vaccinated by June 2022 and take measures to limit global warming by 1.5°C. .

The two were considered priority points by Brazilian diplomacy, who is behind the scenes and far from the differences Jair BolsonaroI heard their positions. During her debating days away from the press, Itamaraty worked to bring different countries’ positions closer together.

However, the question remains as to how to implement each of the measures in practice. In order to have 70% of the population in each country, the rich economies will have to ramp up the distribution of doses, which are now accumulated in less than a dozen governments.

Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, celebrated the agreement. But, in remarks to UOL, he insisted that promises to release immunizing agents must be turned into action.

Before the 70% target was reached in June, leaders set an interim goal to vaccinate 40% of the countries’ population by the end of the year.

On the climate, with the G20 still only hours away from finishing its first face-to-face summit two years ago in Rome, agreement on climate and energy remains uncertain.

One obstacle has been China and India’s insistence that they need more time to make any kind of transition to cleaner energy. This is one of the central points in the debate on emissions. But the two Asian giants warn that a change in the structure of economies will require a longer period of adjustment.

Both have become poles of CO2 emissions in recent years. But they claim, like other emerging nations, that the accumulation of greenhouse gases on the planet is a responsibility above all rich nations for decades.

There are also outstanding points in the final declaration due to government interests Joe Biden.

But for negotiators in Rome, the difficulty of coming up with just a statement of principles at the G-20 reveals just how tough the Glasgow climate summit will be from Sunday.

The meeting, known as COP26, aims to develop a charter to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which have reached a record level of concentration in the atmosphere.