Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Monday the world faces “a new period of major changes” as G20 leaders met in Brazil two months before US president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
US President Joe Biden was attending his last summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck eclipsed by Xi, who has cast himself as a protector of the international order in the Trump 2.0 era.
World leaders are meeting for two days to try to jumpstart stalled UN climate talks and overcome their differences on wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and extracting more tax from the super-rich.
In a nod to the return of China hawk Trump, Xi told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the world was “entering a new period of major changes.”
As leaders lined up to meet the most powerful man in Rio, Xi added that Britain and China would “shoulder the important task of… responding to global challenges.”
– Feeding the hungry –
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was using his hosting duties to promote left-wing issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change.
At the opening of the summit, he launched the centerpiece of his G20 presidency: a Global Alliance against Poverty and Hunger, backed by 81 countries, which aims to feed half a million people by 2030.
Before the summit, the 79-year-old host, who is attempting to chart a non-aligned course in international affairs, said he would try steer discussions away from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war,” he said.
But Biden’s decision on the eve of the summit to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike inside Russia threatens to escalate a war Trump has vowed to quickly end.
Biden sought to rally support for Kyiv, urging G20 leaders to support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He also called on them to “increase pressure” on Hamas for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with the Gaza militants.
A Brazilian foreign ministry source told AFP that some countries wanted to renegotiate the wording of a draft final statement for the summit.
“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” the source told AFP.
– Pressure for a climate deal –
G20 leaders are under pressure to try rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled on the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the world’s biggest economies, who account for 80 per cent of global emissions, to show “leadership” on the issue in Rio.
The UN is seeking $1 trillion a year for developing countries to cope with global warming.
But rich countries are stalling, say they want fast-developing economies like China and the Gulf states to also put their hands in their pockets.
The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fuelled by a record drought blamed at least partly on climate change.
The get-together caps a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden which took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.
Biden, who has looked to burnish his legacy as time runs down on his presidency, insisted in the Amazon that his record on cutting emissions would survive another Trump White House.
Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.
– Taxing billionaires –
Brazil is leading a push for higher taxes on billionaires.
But Lula has reportedly faced resistance from Argentine President Javier Milei, who brags that Trump is inspired by his low-tax, cost-cutting agenda.
Argentina’s lead negotiator on the summit text, Federico Pinedo, told AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text. He did not elaborate.
But a Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.
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