G-7 summit panned as 'missed opportunity’ on COVID-19 and climate

The G-7 summit was widely criticized as a “historic missed opportunity” as it drew to a close Sunday, with many commenting on its failure to deliver meaningfully on the key priorities of COVID-19 vaccine distribution and climate finance.

A communique issued by the leaders of the world's highest-income economies — which only mentioned “poverty” twice and in passing — was dismissed as lacking detail on how big rhetorical pledges would be delivered.

While the G-7 announced at the beginning of the summit that it would aim to donate a billion vaccine doses — an ambition quickly branded too small — the communique only committed to sharing “at least 870 million doses directly over the next year” and without clarification on how many would be surplus doses. At least 11 billion doses are estimated to be necessary to reach a global vaccination threshold of 70%.  

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown said G-7 leaders were guilty of “unforgivable moral failure” for their meager vaccine progress, a charge rejected by current Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

After more than a year of pandemic and converging international crises, the G-7 was anticipated to be a landmark summit, with calls for post-World War Two levels of planning and investment. There were hopes the presence of an engaged United States delegation — a departure from the disruptive presence of former President Donald Trump at previous events — would help deliver it.

A successful outcome — which proved the leaders could cooperate among themselves and demonstrate solidarity with lower-income countries — was also considered a key indicator for success at November’s COP 26 summit, which will focus on climate change.

But aside from Canada’s climate finance pledge for 5.63 billion Canadian dollars ($4.4 billion) over five years and agreements on ending support for coal, NGOs and experts were left disappointed and accused the U.K., U.S., France, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Italy of substandard performance.  

”Leaders at this summit have failed to deliver either the vaccine doses and investment needed to end the Covid Pandemic or the real action it will take to stem the tide of climate change,” said Kirsty McNeill, spokesperson for the Crack the Crises campaign organized by a coalition of NGOs in the U.K. “This is an historic missed opportunity that leaves people everywhere dangerously exposed to these crises.”

“The whole world needed this to be the moment when leaders finally agreed to get to grips with the COVID crisis and kickstart a global recovery that protects both planet and people. Instead, with Boris Johnson happy to host the summit but unwilling to lead by example, we were left without the financing, urgency and action we needed and that will cost lives,” she continued.

“Sadly, too many leaders arrived at the summit with good intentions but without their cheque books.”

The Civil Society 7 group of NGOs agreed “G-7 leaders have fallen disappointingly short and failed to ‘build back better,’” said Ruth Valerio, director of advocacy and influencing at the NGO Tearfund, adding that the weekend was “full of hollow words” and the U.K.’s aid budget cuts had left the country “failing to lead in a vital year in the fight against the climate crisis.”

Among the other disappointments were the G-7’s aims of educating 40 million girls, which was dismissed as too small, and recycling key climate finance commitments, such as the U.K.’s £500 million ($703.73 million) Blue Planet Fund, rather than announcing new targets.