- Biden will attend his last summit of the world's major economies.
- Lula da Silva promotes issues such as the fight against hunger and the climate.
- Antonio Guterres calls on G20 members to show “leadership.”
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – G20 leaders began arriving on Monday for a summit in Brazil to try to revive stalled climate talks and overcome their differences over the Middle East and Ukraine wars before Donald Trump's return to office. White House.
US President Joe Biden will attend his last summit of the world's major economies, but as an outgoing leader overshadowed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most influential leader at this year's meeting.
Brazil's leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is using his hosting duties to promote issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change and taxing the super-rich.
But the wars that have bitterly divided G20 members will also feature prominently in the discussions.
A source in Brazil's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that some countries wanted to renegotiate a draft summit communique.
“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open some points on wars and climate,” he said. AFP.
Biden's decision on Sunday to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike targets inside Russia – a major policy change – could prompt European allies to review their posture as well.
G20 leaders are also under pressure to try to rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled over the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on G20 members, who account for 80% of global emissions, to show “leadership” to facilitate a deal.
Security is tight for the meeting, which comes days after a failed bomb attack on Brazil's Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected far-right extremist, who committed suicide in the process.
The meeting will cap a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden that took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trade partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.
Biden, who has sought to burnish his legacy as time runs out on his presidency, insisted in the Amazon that his climate record would survive another Trump term.
Focus on climate
All eyes at the stalled COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan are on Rio to break an impasse over how to raise $1 trillion a year so developing countries can tackle global warming.
Rich countries want rapidly developing economies like China and the Gulf States to put their hands in their pockets too.
The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil's worst wildfire season in more than a decade, fueled by a record drought attributed, at least in part, to climate change.
At the last G20 in India, leaders called for tripling renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.
Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest the International Criminal Court is requesting over the Ukraine war.
Lula, 79, told the Brazilian press globenews channel on Sunday that he did not want the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to divert attention from global poverty.
“Because if not, we will not discuss other things that are more important for people who are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.
Tax billionaires
The summit begins Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up poor, 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 Argentine President Javier Milei, a libertarian super-Trump fan who met with the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, said AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text. He did not give more details.
But the Brazilian Foreign Ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.
