WORLD NEWS: G20 LEADERS GATHER TO DISCUSS WARS, CLIMATE, TRUMP COMEBACK

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Ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, G20 leaders started travelling to Brazil on Monday for a summit in an attempt to revive stalled climate talks and resolve their disagreements over the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

The most powerful leader at this year’s summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping, will overshadow US President Joe Biden, who will attend his final summit of the world’s top economies as a lame duck.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the left-wing president of Brazil, is using his hosting role to advocate for causes that are important to him, such as combating hunger and climate change and taxing the ultra-wealthy.

However, the wars that have caused great division among G20 members are also expected to be a major topic of debate.

“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” he told AFP.

Biden’s significant policy change on Sunday, allowing Ukraine to employ long-range US missiles to hit targets inside Russia, may cause friends in Europe to reconsider their position as well.

The UN climate talks in Azerbaijan have stuck on the topic of more climate finance for developing nations, and G20 leaders are being pressured to attempt to restart them.

G20 members, who are responsible for 80% of global emissions, have been urged by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to demonstrate “leadership” in order to broker an agreement.

The event, which takes place days after a suspected far-right extremist killed himself in a failed bombing attempt on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia, is heavily guarded.

The gathering will wrap up Biden’s final diplomatic journey, which included his first visit to the Amazon as a sitting US president and a meeting with Asia-Pacific trading partners in Lima.

In the Amazon, Biden, who has sought to solidify his legacy as his presidency draws to a close, emphasized that his climate record would endure another Trump mandate.

At the COP29 climate meeting in Azerbaijan, which has deadlocked, all eyes are on Rio to resolve a deadlock on how to fund $1 trillion annually to help developing nations deal with climate change.

Wealthy nations seek to put their hands in the pockets of rapidly growing economies like China and the Gulf states.

Although they did not specifically call for a halt to the use of fossil fuels, leaders at the most recent G20 in India called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with the war in Ukraine, is conspicuously missing from the meeting.

Lula, 79, stated on Sunday on Brazil’s GloboNews channel that he did not want the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts to deflect attention from the world’s poor.

“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.

The summit opens on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”

Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.

Lula had faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentinian President Javier Milei, a libertarian Trump uber-fan who met the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, told AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text, however. He did not elaborate.

But the Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.

AFP