As a result, the prospects for this week’s UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Scotland appear dim-with India announcing Monday that it didn’t plan to hit net zero until 2070. No new net-zero emission pledges emerged from this year’s summit-during which leaders agreed only to achieve “global net zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by or around mid-century.” While twelve member countries have re-committed to reach net zero by 2050, others (including China and Russia) insisted on setting their own target dates around 2060. Adding a discordant note, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin-both absent from Rome-took the virtual platform to complain about the West’s refusal to recognize their COVID vaccines, demanding equal treatment of all vaccines approved by the WHO. The goal of vaccinating at least 40 percent of the global population by the end of this year (and 70 percent by mid-2022), as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been met with only vague promises to “ boost the supply of vaccines.” This is the most important challenge facing the world beside leaving people vulnerable to COVID-19, failing to adequately vaccinate enough people will also threaten global economic recovery. While developed countries have put at least one shot in the arms of 63.5 percent of their populations, low-income countries (LIC) have managed a mere 4.75 percent vaccination rate, according to UN figures.

This year’s summit in Rome failed to produce a concrete action plan to expedite the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Here’s a breakdown of this weekend’s missed opportunities: No new shots… In other words, the G20 risks becoming a miniature United Nations (UN)-a venue for endless discussion rather than swift action. Instead it could become a forum to showcase initiatives agreed elsewhere-or worse, a venue for major countries to posture and poke around for political support. And amid deepening strategic competition between the United States and China, raising distrust and predisposing each side to maneuver for influence, the G20 risks losing its role as the driver for policy cooperation to address serious global problems.

But with US President Joe Biden making an effort to rebuild alliances with fellow democracies, the G20 appears to have evolved into a G7+13-with a more common agenda among the leading Western countries vis-a-vis the rest of the group. The Group of Twenty (G20) nations came of age during the great financial crisis of 2008 to hash out major economic and financial regulatory policies among the world’s largest economies.

Endless space 2 diplomacy