Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 20:58 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Tuesday 27 August 2019
(^6) News
G7 summit
Julian Borger
Biarritz
I
f next year’s G7 summit turns
out to be a branding event
at a Trump golf resort with
Vladimir Putin as de-facto
co-chair, as the US president
suggested yesterday, the old
guard among America’s allies will
look back on this year’s meeting in
Biarritz with some nostalgia.
Not much was achieved , but
that is nothing new. To avoid theembarrassment of the previous
year in Quebec , when Trump
disowned the carefully crafted joint
communiqu e soon after boarding Air
Force One , Emmanuel Macron did
away with the traditional statement
altogether. Without it, there was
nothing to refuse to sign.
The downside was that the
meeting left little trace apart from
resentment in Biarritz, which was
cordoned off for three days.
But at least the leaders of the
world’s larger industrialised
democracies , loosely described asLast rites? Pomp can’t hide
rising sense of impotence
G7 cash to put out inferno in
Amazon will make little
diff erence, say campaigners
Julian Borger
Angelique Chrisafi s Biarritz
Jonathan WattsThe G7’s pledge of $20m (£16m) to help
fi ght the fi res in the Amazon jungle
was dismissed as “chump change”
by environmental campaigners last
night as concerns grew about politi-
cal cooperation on deforestation and
other climate issues.
The summit’s host, Emmanuel
Macron, said he would try to deal with
the long-term causes of the fi res by
creating an international alliance to
save the rainforest, with details of a
new reforestation programme to be
unveiled at next month’s UN climate
meeting in New York.
But Donald Trump skipped the Biar-
ritz summit session aimed at fi nding
solutions to global heating through
tree-planting and shifting from fossil
fuels to wind energy.
In a press conference later, he
was dismissive of the eff orts to shift
direction. “I feel the US has tremen-
dous wealth ... I’m not going to lose
that wealth on dreams, on windmills- which, frankly, aren’t working too
well,” he said. “I think I know more
about the environment than most.”
The most concrete outcome of the
three-day summit of major indus-
trialised democracies was the $20m
that leaders promised to make imme-
diately available to Amazonian nations
such as Brazil and Bolivia, primarily for
more fi refi ghting planes.
Macron also issued a short G7 dec-
laration committing leaders to “open
and fair global trade and the stability
of the global economy” and underlin-
ing “great unity” among the leaders.
The professed unity could be impor-
tant amid uncertainty over the course
of Trump’s trade confl ict with China.
The statement was achieved despite
disagreement at the summit over
Trump’s trade stance on slowing global
trade and industrial activity.
The Amazon assistance plan,
announced by the French and Chilean
presidents , would involve reforest-
ation. “We must respond to the call
of the forest which is burning today
in the Amazon,” said Macron.
The G7 pledge came as fashion
group LVMH said it would donate
€10m to fi ghting the fi res. Environ-
mental groups said the G7 aid was
insuffi cient and did not address the
drivers of deforestation.
“The offer of $20m is chump
change, especially as the crisis in the
Amazon is directly linked to overcon-
sumption of meat and dairy in the UK
and other G7 countries,” said Richard
George, head of forests for Greenpeace
UK. “The UK has plenty of leverage to
stop the destruction ... by suspending
trade talks with Brazil until its full pro-
tection is guaranteed .”
But there was also appreciation
that several G7 leaders, including
Boris Johnson, expressed concerns
about the Amazon. Macron said he
had had long and in-depth talks with
Trump about the fi res and that Trump“shares our objectives” and was “fully
engaged” in the joint eff ort to help put
out the fi res and reforest.
“It’s good to see the fate of this vital
forest on the global agenda, as well as
new commitments of funding, espe-
cially from the UK. But protecting this
incredible forest, and the planet, will
take bolder action,” WWF said. “That
will require us to stop importing com-
modities that drive deforestation.”
Conservation groups in Brazil said
the sums were tiny compared with the
hundreds of millions of dollars Brazil is
losing in donations from Norway and
Germany as a result of president Jair
Bolsonaro’s policies in the Amazon.
Satellite data has recorded more
than 41,000 fi res in the Amazon region
so far this year – more than half of them
in this month alone. Experts say most
of the fi res are started by farmers or
ranchers clearing existing farmland.
Environmental experts say Bolson-
aro’s policies have fuelled accelerating
deforestation and contributed to the
intensity of the wildfi res. France and
Ireland have threatened to block a EU
trade deal with Brazil and three other
Latin American countries if Bolsonaro
does not act.
Macron’s criticism sparked an
angry response from Bolsonaro, who
accused him of treating Brazil like
“a colony or no man’s land”. But the
pressure has prompted Bolsonaro to
deploy two aircraft to tackle the fi res.
The reforestation plan would
require the consent of Bolsonaro and
local communities. The Chilean pres-
ident, Sebastián Piñera, a Bolsonaro
ally on the political right, said he was
confi dent he would be able to convince
him about the need for reforestation.
“I will discuss that with him. But I
think that it is absolutely necessary.
And I tend to think that he will agree,”
Piñera told the Guardian.News Trade war hits yuan Page 27
Journal Leader comment Page 2
Journal Simon Tisdall Page 3 the west, put on a show of common
endeavour, even if the “declaration”
they put out was thinner than the
single page it was printed on.
There were statements on the
need to prevent Iran acquir ing
nuclear weapons , and some trade
tensions were eased. A vow was
made to do something about the
burning Amazo n, with a down-
payment of $20m, signifi cantly less
than the cost of the summit and a
particularly paltry sum in view of
what was generally agreed to be an
existential threat to the planet.
Looming over the whole aff air,
however, was an awareness that
everything could become a lot worse
next year when Trump will be the
ringmaster. He will be in the middle
of his campaign for re-election, and
so even less engaged or willing to
compromise than he was in Biarritz.The conceit of the G7 is that it
represent s a family of like-minded
nations. Next year, they could fi nd
themselves little more than Trump’s
paying customers.
There was a fi tting end-of-epo ch
feel to this year’s venue. Biarritz is
old-world glamour, overlooking the
Bay of Biscay with gentle breezes
and golden evening light on its
neatly raked beaches. It evokes a
grandeur from another age, when
Europe was the centre of the world,and could assume its values would at
least be admired if not emulated.
Surrounded by their entourages,
the leaders took the morning air,
strolling from their quarters at
the Hotel du Palais, past the art
deco casino where the one-armed
bandits and blackjack tables were
silent for the long weekend and up
a steeply rising path to the meeting
rooms at the Bellevue. The ir sense
of importance combined with their
evident impotence was reminiscent
of Europe’s rul ers on the eve of the
fi rst world war, oblivious to the fact
their world was about to end.
Boris Johnson, with his calculated
dishevelled and absent-minded
demeanour, came across as a
character actor in an Edwardian
period drama, literally making his
small splash by swimming out from
the deserted beach to a rock withBolsonaro rebuked
Emmanuel Macron yesterday
condemned comments made
about his wife, Brigitte , by Brazil’s
far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro ,
escalating their diplomatic
clash. “He has made some
extraordinarily rude comments
about my wife,” the French
president said in Biarritz when
asked to react to statements about
him by the Brazilian government.
“What can I say? It’s sad. It’s sad
for him fi rstly, and for Brazilians. ”
Bolson aro had personally
expressed approval online for
a Facebook post implying that
Brigitte Macron was not as good-
looking as his own wife, Michelle.
Angelique Chrisafi sNone of the cast had
a sense of theatre
to match master of
ceremonies MacronRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws