G7 Summit 'an unforgivable moral failure'

XR campaigners outside summit

As the G7 negotiations come to an end with just the 'goodbye' photos to take - development agencies and environment campaigners say the summit has totally failed, leaving millions of marginalised and vulnerable communities dangerously exposed to Covid and the impact of global warming.

CAFOD Director Christine Allen said: "Leaders of the G7 have wasted a precious face to face meeting to encourage each other and deliver urgent and desperately needed action on Covid and the climate crisis. They've failed on concrete commitments on the finance needed and the climate actions are inadequate given the urgency.

Will the actions of these G7 nations have created necessary trust around the world as we move towards the next major summit in the UK, COP26? I'd says that's unlikely.

It is clear the G7 leaders have not adequately heard the voices of the world's poor in relation to vaccines and climate finance.

If Boris Johnson believes that 'global Britain' is a force for good, then he needs to show by his actions the moral imperative to take urgent action for a fairer, greener and just world."

Patrick Watt's Director of Policy, Public Affairs and Campaigns at Christian Aid said: "This summit was an opportunity for the richest nations of the world to tackle the perfect storm of the pandemic, the climate emergency, and the debt crisis that is hitting the world's poorest people hardest. We've heard warm words about a green Marshall Plan and ambitions to vaccinate the world, but this falls well short of what's needed.

"This is a partial plan not a Marshall Plan. The US committed 6.5% of its post-war GDP to the Marshall Plan. The UK, in contrast, has reneged on an aid promise one tenth as ambitious. The G7 needed to progress comprehensive debt relief, deliver on climate finance promises, and act to end vaccine apartheid.

"The G7 leadership has failed to make real progress in any of these areas. The success of the COP26 climate summit now hangs in the balance. There is still time for rich nations to deliver a solidarity package that tackles these interconnected crises. Without it, the COP will fail."

Greta Thunberg tweeted: "For the umpteenth time the rich club has failed to deliver on its promise to channel $100bn a year to poor nations coping with a heating climate.The world's richest democracies have responded with a plan to make a plan."

Oxfam International tweeted: "The #G7 have chosen to cook the books on #vaccines and continue to cook the planet. We don't need to wait for history to judge this summit a colossal failure, it is plain for all to see" -

Nick Dearden from Global Justice Now said: "Johnson says this was the first zero-carbon summit' You flew from London to Cornwall. I said on Friday we shouldn't expect anything positive from the G7. Gives me no pleasure to be proved so right. This archaic, self-interested forum should never meet again.

So after three days, the #G7 is committing *less* Covid vaccine donations than when the meeting started?? Only 840m now. And nothing but opposition for a #PeoplesVaccine. The lives of the majority of the world are irrelevant to these people."

Gordon Brown commented that G7 summit will "go down as an unforgivable moral failure."