World Leaders Hold Roundtable as G-20 Meeting Begins in Rome

World leaders hold a roundtable meeting as the G-20 leaders summit gets underway in Rome, Italy, Saturday, October 30. 👉Leaders of the world’s most advanced nations met Saturday at the G-20 summit in Rome, aiming to hammer out a way forward on climate change and vaccine equality, with consensus still outstanding on the most pressing global issues. In their first in-person gathering since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the relaunch of the global economy also will be front and center on the two-day agenda, while the bloc is likely to approve a minimum tax rate for the biggest multinationals. Looming over the talks, though, is pressure to make headway on tackling global warming, before they join a wider group of world leaders gathering for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which begins Sunday. “From the pandemic, to climate change, to fair and equitable taxation, going it alone is simply not an option,“ G-20 host and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told the assembled group of leaders ahead of the closed-door meeting. G-20 heads of state arrived Saturday morning at Rome’s futuristic convention center — known as the “Nuvola“ (cloud) in EUR, a southern Rome district built by Benito Mussolini to glorify his fascist regime — posing with frontline health workers in a group photo. The stakes are high, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning G-20 leaders Friday to show “more ambition and more action“ and overcome mistrust in order to advance climate goals. It remains to be seen whether the richest countries will agree to the goal of limiting global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious target outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. (AFP)