G20 leaders met in Rome, Italy, on October 30-31. This meeting, which is expected to address global crises such as climate change and pandemic, attracted attention recently after 2020 was announced as a record year in greenhouse emissions. Environmentalists and citizens, who are waiting for decisive steps to prevent the climate crisis, are not satisfied with the “weak” decisions taken at the summit.

The year 2050 is expressed as a critical date by scientists. Although researchers say that we should reach the ‘zero emissions’ target by this date, countries such as China and Russia do not seem in a hurry. According to the information obtained, while many of the G20 leaders accepted the 2050 target, countries such as China and Russia, which contributed the most to global emissions, opposed this date by stating that they found this date ‘too early’. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the following statement on the subject: “2050 is not a magic number. Russia will try to reach its zero emissions target by 2060. ”

“The year 2050 may be too late,” environmentalists say:

While no concrete plan was put forward at the G20 summit regarding the ‘zero emissions by 2050’ target, which was called ‘meaningful and effective’ at the summit, the environmentalist Greenpeace organization accused the G20 leaders of not behaving as required by the current conditions, and commented on the summit’s final statement as “weak, unwilling and lacking in vision”. found.

“If the G20 was a rehearsal for the COP 26 climate summit, world leaders messed it up,” said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace. ” and Friederike Roder, director of Global Citizen, the international organization established to end global poverty, stated that he did not find the steps announced at the summit meaningful and that they were “half words”.

The Italian Prime Minister considers the summit to be ‘full of content’:

In his speech at the United Nations Climate Summit in 2019, he told the leaders, “How dare you!” Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg accused world leaders of saying empty words. However, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi stated that although the world leaders were criticized, this summit was “full of content”.

At the G20 summit, which was of great importance before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), it was decided to stop giving international public financing to coal-fired electricity generating plants until the end of 2021. Despite this, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres commented on the summit: “I am leaving Rome with my hopes unfulfilled. But at least they weren’t completely buried either. ”

Promised to ensure fairness in global vaccine distribution:

Combating the pandemic was among the most important topics of the G20 summit. While G20 leaders said they aim to vaccinate close to 50% of the global population by the end of 2021, and 70% by mid-2022, they promised to work towards ensuring a fair order so that every country can access the vaccine. Stating that the difference in vaccination rates between high-income countries and poor countries is morally unacceptable, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi pointed out in his speech at the summit that this situation makes it difficult to return to global normalcy.

Another important decision taken at the summit was the implementation of the global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, which was accepted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). While this decision on the minimum corporate tax in the G20 is planned to come into effect in 2023, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi believes that this agreement, which he describes as “historical”, will create a more fair and effective international tax system.