Recently, the G20 summit kicked off on October 30, 2021, where leaders of 19 countries and the European Union met in Rome to address global issues. The G20 summit was founded in 1999 and has assembled at least once every year involving high-rank officials from their respective countries. The goal of this meeting is to foster global economic cooperation and diplomatic activity. Besides the United States, the rest of the countries are Australia, Argentina, Britain, Brazil, China, France, Canada, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Russia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa, and Turkey.
The two-day gathering will hopefully produce a joint statement from the countries where they touch on global issues and how they can best address these issues going forward. Some of the issues being discussed during the summit include access to vaccines, climate change, economic relief to developing countries, and more. President Biden, who was present at the summit, met with the leaders of France, Britain, and Germany to discuss ways to better address the pandemic and the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran. In 2015, Iran and six nations (including the United States) reached an accord to limit Iran’s nuclear power in exchange for lifting oil and financial sanctions. The deal, under President Obama, was a huge diplomatic achievement as it created a new relationship between the two countries. However, in 2018, President Trump pulled out of the accord, causing Iran to violate certain elements of the pact. At the 2021 summit, Biden and several leaders hope to get the 2015 nuclear accord back on track. A big topic at the summit was the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. According to science analytics company Airfinity, G20 countries are receiving 15 times more doses per capita than countries in Africa. Including the United States, several G20 countries offered to donate vaccine doses to the area. Several notable absences at the summit include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping who decided not to attend due to the risk of Covid infection. On the second day of the G20 summit, the leaders came up with an agreement on climate change committing each present nation to stop financing coal by the start of 2022 and to help contain global warming. The summit is a great step in the right direction to solving global issues but more direct action is needed. Time will tell if the agreement and the meeting overall will yield results on issues such as climate change and the Covid-19 vaccine. https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/g20-rome-sunday-session/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-is-reached-after-long-negotiations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/business/oecd-global-minimum-tax.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/01/g20-what-did-world-leaders-agree-at-the-summit-in-rome
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