Vaccine donation pledge at the closing of the G7 summit is long overdue
Xinhua News Agency, Falmouth, UK, June 13th (Reporter Zhang Dailei and Xu Feng) The three-day G7 summit closed on the 13th in Cornwall, southwestern England.
Although the Group of Seven countries made commitments in areas such as new crown vaccine donations and economic recovery after the meeting, some international politicians and organizations pointed out that the G7 commitments were late and far from enough.
The Group of Seven countries said in a joint communiqué issued after the meeting that one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be provided to the world by the end of next year to promote the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as soon as possible; they will cooperate to strengthen the global health emergency system and commit to scientific research and development. The cycle of the vaccine was shortened to 100 days.
In the economic field, the G7 stated that it will maintain a long-term economic stimulus plan to achieve economic recovery as soon as possible.
In the field of environmental protection and climate, the G7 pledged to achieve "net zero emissions" of greenhouse gases by 2050.
In response to the G7 vaccine pledge, UN Secretary-General Guterres believes that although this is a welcome and correct decision, the efforts made by Western countries in the global anti-epidemic field are “far from enough”.
Former British Prime Minister Brown said that the G7 vaccine promise is long overdue and is not strong enough to be a real solution.
"They failed the first stage test (anti-epidemic)."
Mariot, the health policy director of the international rescue organization Oxfam, said that if the G7 can only donate 1 billion doses of the new crown vaccine, then "this summit is a failure."
WHO Director-General Tan Desai said on June 7 that so far, 44% of all new crown vaccines have been used in rich countries, while only 0.4% have been used in the poorest countries.
Under pressure from public opinion, the United States and the United Kingdom made some vaccine sharing promises at the G7 summit, but it is still unknown whether these promises will be fulfilled in the end.
During the summit, a large number of people held demonstrations to protest that the G7 only made "empty promises" and lacked practical actions.
The G7 is composed of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.
Britain is the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven this year.
In addition to the leaders of the seven countries, the leaders of Australia, South Korea, India and South Africa were invited to participate in the summit, and representatives of the European Union also attended the meeting.