G20 should send surplus vaccines to poor countries, former leaders say

The leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies should use a meeting this weekend in Rome to agree how to transfer surplus Covid-19 vaccines to low-income countries, a group of former presidents and prime ministers said on Friday.

In a letter to Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, one hundred former leaders and government ministers from around the world urged him to use the G20 summit to address what they said was an unfair distribution of vaccines.

The group said the United States, European Union, Britain and Canada would be stockpiling 240 million unused vaccines by the end of the month, which these nations’ military could immediately airlift to countries in greater need.

By the end of February a total of 1.1 billion surplus vaccines could be transferred, it said.

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“It would be unethical for all these vaccines to be wasted when globally there are 10,000 deaths from Covid-19 every day, many of which could be averted,” said the letter, whose signatories include former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, former British prime minister Gordon Brown and former Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso.

The group said the World Health Organization’s aim for 40 per cent of the world’s population to be vaccinated by the end of the year could only be met if the G20 made a joint decision to order an emergency transfer of their excess vaccine supplies.

“Vaccine inequality also constitutes a threat to us all,” it said. “We are all not safe until everyone is safe. Without urgent and widespread vaccination, variants will continue to arise in unvaccinated regions, and may well spread from there to challenge the vaccine protection achieved hitherto in more vaccinated countries.”

Meanwhile, China’s president Xi Jinping will participate in the G20 leaders’ summit in Rome over the weekend via video link, according to a notice from China’s foreign ministry on Friday.

He will make a speech at the summit, the notice said.

Mr Xi has not left China since early 2020, when the gravity of the Covid-19 pandemic became clear.

A handful of other key leaders from wealthy G20 nations, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida will not attend in person. Host Italy had hoped the summit would see all leaders meet face-to-face.

US president Joe Biden has confirmed he will attend in person.

The G20, whose countries account for 80 per cent of global carbon emissions, is considered an important stepping stone before the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Scotland, which begins on Sunday.

Mr Xi is also not expected to attend Cop26 in person, which could indicate that the world’s biggest CO2 producer has already decided that it has no more concessions to offer at the UN Cop26 climate summit in Scotland after three major pledges since last year, climate watchers said.

The G20 also aims to underline that rich countries should stump up $100 billion dollars per year to help poorer nations adapt to climate change.

This goal was supposed to be achieved by 2020, according to an agreement reached in 2009, but has not been met. – Reuters