About forty leaders, including Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombian Gustavo Petro and Cuban Miguel Díaz-Canel, as well as heads of various international organizations will spend two days discussing how to support the most vulnerable countries in the face of the crisis the double challenge of poverty and climate change at the summit opened by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris this Thursday (June 22, 2023).
Macron called for “very concrete solutions” to reform development financing now so that affected countries are also confronted with the consequences of climate change. “No country should have to choose between reducing poverty and protecting the planet,” Macron said in his opening speech at the summit for a new global financial pact.
Looking for an up-to-date alternative to Bretton Woods
This two-day event brings together leaders, international institutions and civil society representatives in Paris to try to lay the groundwork for a new development finance system that will enable participating countries to lift themselves out of poverty while addressing the challenges of the climate change.
Macron called for a “public funding shock” and more private funding to meet these challenges, warning that each country must be “sovereign” to find its own solution. The aim of the summit is to review the international financial architecture that emerged with the Bretton Woods Accords in 1944, when the priority was to rebuild Europe to face the challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, to adjust.
Macron greets South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa upon his arrival at the summit. Image: Ludovic Marin/Portal
France wants to give “political impetus” to the idea of a global tax on CO2 emissions from maritime trade, which experts say could amount to 20,000 million dollars a year, just days before a major meeting of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The “toolbox” of possible solutions also includes the idea of reusing $100 billion in Special Drawing Rights, the IMF’s reserve currency.
Russia protests possible French presence at BRICS meeting
At the same time, Russia criticized France’s interest in attending the next meeting of the BRICS group in August in South Africa. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said he was an “inappropriate guest” because he had “such a hostile and unacceptable policy towards us” that he insisted on Russia’s international isolation, according to the RIA news agency. “And we do not hide this approach, we told our colleagues in South Africa about it – we hope that our point of view will be fully accepted,” Ryabkov said.
South Africa is considering the legal ramifications of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s possible participation in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa itself) summit. The country is a member of the International Criminal Court and should theoretically arrest him if he enters the country, as demanded by the opposition, since he has an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity by Russian troops in Ukraine. .
LGC (afp/efe/rtr)