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World leaders pose for photo on G20 Summmit 2021 in Rome, Italy - 

Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies sit down for a second day of talks on Sunday (Oct 31) faced with the difficult task of bridging their differences on how to combat global warming ahead of a crucial United Nations summit on climate change.

The first day of the Rome summit - the leaders' first face-to-face gathering since the start of the COVID pandemic - focused mainly on health and the economy, while climate and the environment is front and centre of Sunday's agenda.

Climate scientists and activists are likely to be disappointed unless late breakthroughs are made, with drafts of the G20's final communique showing little progress in terms of new commitments to curb pollution.

The G20 bloc, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for an estimated 80 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say must be steeply reduced to avoid climate catastrophe.

For that reason, this weekend's gathering is seen as an important stepping stone to the UN's COP26 climate summit attended by almost 200 countries, in Glasgow, Scotland, where most of the G20 leaders will fly directly from Rome.

"The latest reports are disappointing, with little sense of urgency in the face of an existential emergency," said Oscar Soria of the activist network Avaaz.

"There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action."

A fifth draft of the G20's final statement seen by Reuters on Saturday did not toughen the language on climate action compared with previous versions, and in some key areas, such as the need to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, it softened it.

This mid-century target date is a goal that United Nations experts say is needed to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, seen as the limit to avoid a dramatic acceleration of extreme events such as droughts, storms and floods.

UN experts say even if current national plans to curb emissions are fully implemented, the world is headed for global warming of 2.7C.

The planet's largest carbon emitter China, is aiming for net zero in 2060, while other major polluters such as India and Russia have also not committed to the mid-century deadline.

G20 energy and environment ministers who met in Naples in July failed to reach agreement on setting a date to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and end coal power, asking the leaders to find a resolution at this weekend's summit.

Based on the latest draft, they have made little progress, pledging to "do our utmost" to stop building new coal power plants before the end of the 2030s and saying they will phase out fossil fuel subsidies "over the medium term". 

On the other hand, they do pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year.

Some developing countries are reluctant to commit to steep emission cuts until rich nations make good on a pledge made 12 years ago to provide US$100 billion per year from 2020 to help them tackle the effects of global warming.

That promise has still not been kept, contributing to the "mistrust" which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday was blighting progress in climate negotiations.

The draft stresses the importance of meeting the goal and doing so in a transparent way//CNA

FILE PHOTO: People sit after receiving a dose of AstraZeneca coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine during a mass vaccination in Monterrey, Mexico August 5, 2021. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril - 

Mexico's health ministry said it had on Saturday (Oct 30) received nearly 6 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses against COVID-19 as pressure grows on the government to widen its vaccination roll-out to include children.

The shipment of 5,993,700 doses followed the arrival of almost 6.5 million Sputnik V vaccine doses on Tuesday, easily the two biggest vaccine consignments Mexico has received, according to data on the ministry's website.

Mexico has fully vaccinated against COVID-19 around 56 million people, or over 43 per cent of the population, according to Our World in Data, a research group at Oxford University.

The government has yet to undertake a broad inoculation program for children, saying only that it would vaccinate up to a million aged between 12 and 17 deemed to be at high risk.

However, media reported this week that a court had ordered health authorities to give more vaccinations to children aged 12-17 just as other countries do so.

Separately, the health ministry reported 3,478 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 325 more fatalities, bringing Mexico's overall death toll from the pandemic to 288,276 and the total number of cases to 3,805,765.

Officials have said the ministry's figures likely represent a significant undercount of both COVID-19 cases and deaths//CNA

FILE PHOTO: President of the World Bank David Malpass arrives for the G20 leaders summit in Rome, Italy October 30, 2021. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane - 

World Bank President David Malpass on Saturday (Oct 30) called on leaders of the Group of 20 rich nations to speed up work on debt restructuring for low-income countries, including a freeze on debt payments and mandatory participation of private creditors.

Malpass told G20 leaders meeting in Rome that progress on dealing with the debt of the poorest countries has stalled and urgent efforts are needed to jumpstart the process.

G20 leaders pledged to step up their efforts to implement the Common Framework on Debt Treatments and stressed the importance of private-sector participation, but failed to include any language on a new debt standstill, according to the text of their communique, which was seen by Reuters.

Several countries including China - the world's biggest creditor, accounting for 65 per cent of official bilateral debt - have opposed a new freeze in debt service payments.

Malpass, who this month called for adding a freeze in debt-service payments to the Common Framework, said developing nations face problems disrupting economic recovery including the COVID-19 pandemic and the scarcity of vaccines, as well as inflation, energy shortages and a breakdown of the supply chain.

"The multiple problems are causing devastating reversals in development," Malpass said, citing rising poverty rates and increasing fragility in dozens of countries including Sudan, even as the debt of low-income countries rose 12 per cent during the pandemic, reducing their ability to invest in anything else.

"Progress on debt has stalled," Malpass said. "I urge you to explicitly accelerate the implementation of the Common Framework, request transparency and reconciliation of debt, and require the participation of private creditors."

Malpass said International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva also favors a debt-payment standstill, but additional steps also are needed to balance the legal relationship between creditors and sovereign debtors//CNA

G20 leaders - 

Leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies (G20) will endorse an OECD deal on a global minimum corporate tax of 15per cent, draft conclusions of the two-day G20 summit showed on Saturday, with a view to have the rules in force in 2023.

"We call on the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting to swiftly develop the model rules and multilateral instruments as agreed in the Detailed Implementation Plan, with a view to ensure that the new rules will come into effect at global level in 2023," the draft conclusions, seen by Reuters, said.

The conclusions are to be formally adopted on Sunday.

In October, 136 countries reached a deal on a minimum tax on global corporations, including internet giants like Google , Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft or Apple to make it harder for them to avoid taxation by establishing offices in low-tax jurisdictions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the endorsement of the minimum tax would help U.S. businesses and workers, even though the deal also means that many U.S.-based companies, like the Internet giants, will be paying more tax than now.

"This deal will remake the global economy into a more prosperous place for American business and workers," Yellen said in a statement//CNA