- Biden will attend his recent summit of the world’s leading economies.
- Lula da Silva promotes issues such as the fight against hunger and climate.
- António Guterres calls on G20 members to show “leadership.”
RIO DE JANEIRO: G20 leaders began arriving for a summit in Brazil on Monday to try to revive faltering climate talks and bridge their differences over the Middle East and Ukraine wars before Donald Trump returns to the White House.
US President Joe Biden will attend his latest summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck leader he will be overshadowed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most influential leader at this year’s meeting.
Leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is using his hosting duties to promote issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger, climate change and taxing the wealthy.
But the wars that have so bitterly divided G20 members are set to figure prominently in the discussions.
A source at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that some countries want to renegotiate the draft summit statement.
He added: “For Brazil and other countries, the text has already been finalized, but some countries want to open some points regarding wars and climate.” Agence France-Presse.
Biden’s decision on Sunday to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike targets inside Russia — a major policy shift — may prompt European allies to review their stance as well.
G20 leaders are also under pressure to try to salvage UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled over the issue of increasing climate financing for developing countries.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on G20 members, who account for 80% of global emissions, to show “leadership” to facilitate an agreement.
Security has been tightened for the rally, which comes days after the failed bomb attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected right-wing extremist, who killed himself in the process.
The meeting will culminate in a diplomatic farewell tour for Biden, in which he visited Lima to meet trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region, and then to the Amazon in the first visit of its kind by a sitting American president.
Biden, looking to burnish his legacy as his presidency goes on, insisted in the Amazon region that his climate record would withstand another Trump term.
Highlighting the climate
At the stalled COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan, all eyes are on Rio to break the deadlock over how to raise $1 trillion annually to help developing countries overcome global warming.
Rich countries want fast-growing economies like China and the Gulf states to put their hands in their pockets.
The meeting comes in a year that has seen another grim series of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in more than a decade, fueled by a record drought blamed at least in part on climate change.
At the recent G20 summit in India, leaders called for tripling renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.
Conspicuously absent from the summit was Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest over the Ukraine war.
Lula, 79, told the Brazil newspaper Globo News Trump said Sunday that he does not want the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to take focus away from global poverty.
“Because if not, we won’t be discussing other things that are more important for people who are not at war, who are poor and invisible to the world,” he said.
Taxing billionaires
The summit opens on Monday with Lula, a former steel worker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.”
Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.
Lula has faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentine President Javier Miley, a staunch liberal Trump fan who met with the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, said Agence France-Presse But Buenos Aires raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text. He did not go into details.
But on Monday, the source at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry downplayed the possibility of Argentina blocking a consensus.