G-20 live updates: Pandemic and climate change top summit agenda
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A pair of back-to-back international summits gets underway on Saturday, as leaders of the Group of 20 nations, representing the world’s largest economies, meet in Rome for their first in-person gathering of the pandemic.
Here’s what to know
The leaders are expected to discuss expanding vaccine access, averting the next pandemic, their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and their financial contributions to support lower-income countries facing brutal consequences of climate change.There is also a push to adopt a global minimum tax, ensuring that big companies have to pay at least 15 percent on overseas profits.The meeting taking place in EUR, a Roman neighborhood designed as a fascist showpiece by Benito Mussolini, for a World’s Fair that never happened.The summit is noteworthy for its absences. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and new Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are not attending in person.On Monday, leaders will travel from Rome to Glasgow, Scotland, for the far bigger United Nations climate conference known as COP26.
Biden calls handling of defense deal that upset France ‘clumsy’
President Biden sought to smooth over relations with America’s oldest ally on Friday, acknowledging that the U.S. had been “clumsy” in its handling of a weapons agreement that led France to lose a multibillion-dollar contract and has fueled French anger for weeks.
“It was not done with a lot of grace,” Biden said, sitting beside French President Emmanuel Macron in their first face-to-face meeting since the U.S.-French rift erupted in September. He added that “what happened was, to use an English phrase … clumsy.”
Biden suggested that he had not realized the French would be blindsided by America’s agreement to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia, a move that cost France a lucrative contract to provide its own submarines to Australia. “I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not coming through,” Biden said.
He was technically on French territory as he met with Macron at the French Embassy to the Holy See, a carefully choreographed move intended to elevate their meeting beyond a typical bilateral conversation.
When the Biden administration in September agreed to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia, that effectively overrode an earlier deal for Canberra to buy $66 billion worth of diesel-powered submarines from France.
Macron’s government said at the time that the unexpected move raised fundamental questions about the future of transatlantic security cooperation, and France briefly recalled its ambassador from Washington.
Meeting with Pope Francis on Friday for the first time during his administration, President Biden said he was told by the pontiff that he is a “good Catholic” who should continue to receive Communion, even as some conservative U.S. Catholic leaders argue he should be denied the sacrament for his stance on abortion.
The meeting between the world’s two most powerful Catholics was, in large part, a warm affair: They talked about policies on which they agreed. They shared gifts. Biden arrived at the Apostolic Palace saying, “It’s good to be back,” and stayed with the pontiff well after he was supposed to leave. Biden called the visit “wonderful.”
But such is the strained state of American Catholicism that even a diplomatic meeting between admirers can touch on explosive material for the faith. When Biden, speaking hours later to reporters, unexpectedly described Francis as having spoken about Communion, it appeared as if the pope was making a judgment on a question roiling the U.S. church — about whether politicians who support abortion should be barred from one of the religion’s most sacred rites.
“We just talked about the fact he was happy that I was a good Catholic and I should keep receiving Communion,” Biden said.
The Holy See’s own readout of the event mentioned neither Communion nor abortion, and the pope’s reported comment didn’t appear in an edited 13-minute clip of Vatican footage from the day. A Vatican spokesman said the church wouldn’t respond to Biden’s description of events, saying the conversation had been “private.”
While the full view of events was limited, the account quickly caused a stir for American Catholics, who had been watching this first stop on Biden’s trip to Europe — where he’ll also attend a Group of 20 summit in Rome and climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland — for what it might say about two men contending with similar polarization and adversaries.
President Biden is hoping to use his second trip abroad to reassert American leadership on the global stage, while showing a domestic audience that international cooperation can lead to concrete benefits like defeating the coronavirus and curtailing greenhouse emissions.
This weekend’s meeting in Rome of the Group of 20 major economic powers, which will be immediately followed by a climate summit in Glasgow expected to draw more than 100 world leaders, will provide time for Biden to establish a personal rapport with foreign allies, many of whom he has not yet met face-to-face amid changing regimes and pandemic restrictions. European partners in particular have been shaken by Biden’s early moves, including a messy Afghan withdrawal, an extension of Trump-era tariffs and the delayed lifting of a coronavirus-related travel ban.
The summits this weekend and next week are notable in part for their absences: Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not coming in person, so Biden will not have a chance to engage directly with either adversary.
Biden’s second trip abroad comes as his domestic agenda is in a delicate phase. He delayed his flight to Italy on Thursday to plead with fellow Democrats to back a deal that would deliver on promises to mitigate climate change, shore up the social safety net and rebuild roads and bridges.
Biden hopes to use climate and tax measures in the deal, which remained in limbo Friday, as a catalyst to spur broad international agreements. While Biden’s domestic challenges could play into his effectiveness as a global leader, his success or failure abroad — particularly at next week’s climate summit — could, in turn, resonate at home.
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