47th G7 Summit

  • The Indian Prime Minister addressed the 47th G7 Summit 2021 through video conferencing.
  • Earlier, the Finance Ministers from the G7 nations reached a landmark accord setting a Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate (GMCTR).
  • This year’s summit was hosted by the UK. 
  • The theme was ‘Build Back Better.
  • The last G-7 summit was in France in 2019, with last year’s event in the US canceled due to the pandemic. 
4 PRIORITIES BY UK
  • The UK has outlined four priority areas for its presidency this year:
  1. Leading the global recovery from coronavirus while strengthening resilience against future pandemics,
  2. Promoting future prosperity by championing free and fair trade,
  3. Tackling climate change and preserving the planet's biodiversity,
  4. Championing shared values and open societies.

BUILD BACK BETTER FOR THE WORLD PROJECT

  • It is aimed squarely at competing with China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
  • BRI was joined by G7 member Italy, in 2019.
  • The G-7 project will collectively catalyse hundreds of billions of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries (in Asia and Africa) and offer a values-driven, high-standard and transparent partnership with G7.

CARBIS BAY DECLARATION

  • The G7 signed the Carbis Bay Declaration. 
  • It is aimed at preventing future pandemics.
  • The G7 also pledged over 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses for poorer nations. 
  • Half of the vaccines would come from the United States and 100 million from Britain.

CLIMATE CHANGE

  • Renewed a pledge to raise their contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of USD 100 billion a year to help poorer countries cut carbon emissions.
  • Promised to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
  • Pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

CHINA

  • The G-7 statement which was not signed by India and other outreach countries hit out at China on “human rights and fundamental freedoms” in Xinjiang (Uyghur Muslims) and Hong Kong, and the unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the South China Sea.
  • It also called for a transparent and timely World Health Organization’s Covid origins study in China.

INDIA

  • Since 2014, this is the second time the Prime Minister will be participating in a G7 meeting. 
  • India had been invited by the G7 French presidency in 2019 to the Biarritz Summit as a “Goodwill Partner”.
  • This year, apart from India, Australia and South Korea were also invited to participate in the proceedings of the summit as “guest countries”.
  • India signed off on a joint statement by G-7 and guest countries on “open societies” that reaffirm and encourage the values of “freedom of expression, both online and offline, as a freedom that safeguards democracy and helps people live free from fear and oppression”.
  • Indian PM articulated the “One Earth, One Health” mantra for global cooperation to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as well as future pandemics.



                                              

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