What India can offer at the G7 summit
What India can offer at the G7 summit: The G7 leaders’ summit, the first high-level, in-person meet since the pandemic broke out 14 months ago, is a critical moment for global cooperation. In particular, all attention will be on the manner in which the group of seven chooses to address the issue of equitable vaccine distribution and provision of financial flows to developing countries for tackling climate change and its impacts, particularly the $100 billion-a-year commitment made in Copenhagen.
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The G7’s response to the twin challenge of the pandemic and climate change will determine the credibility of democratic societies to respond to global crises. On Covid vaccines, the G7 must provide a plan to ensure that the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries are not left behind in the vaccination race. As chair, the UK must galvanise the group to resolve this issue — be it through an engagement on the India and South Africa WTO proposal, or through donations of vaccines, or developing partnerships. India should, as we have suggested, offer to share with any willing producer anywhere technical know-how for its indigenously developed vaccines. On climate change, the G7 must step up to fulfil its commitment to mobilise financial flows to the developing world. This is critical if the world is to slow down global warming and limit the worst possible impacts of climate change.
The invitation to the G7 Cornwall meet is a recognition of India’s role in maintaining an open and liberal world order. India must leverage its unique position, a leading emerging economy that has great deal in common with the world’s poorest countries, to be a voice of the global south. It can do this not by clinging on to dogmatic positions but by forging partnerships that are rooted in equity and pragmatism.
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