From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The 18th G20 summit’s third and final session was held at Bharat Mandapam at the Pragati Maidan here on better environment for the planet titled “One Future”, with the symbolic handover of the sapplings by two Presidents to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for plantation in India even as US President Joe Biden skipped the session and flew to Hanoi since the leaderships’ declaration already adopted on Saturday with consensus on the contentious “Ukraine paragraph” as an early breakthrough and success of India’s presidency.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, representing the G20 presidencies of last year and the next year, handed over a sapling each to current chair Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.
It is now G21 as the African Union became a permanent member of the grouping on Saturday. It ended Sunday afternoon at 12.30 PM as India hands over the presidency to Brazil for the 19th summit to be held at its capital Rio de Janeiro in 2024.
Though the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration was adopted on Saturday at the instance of PM Modi, its formal adoption on Sunday after the third session on “One Future” will ring down the curtain on the world leaders’ assembly. There were also press conferences by the world leaders at 2.30 PM.
PM Modi will be holding more than 15 bilateral meetings over the two days. He held discussions with U.K. PM Sunak, Italian PM Meloni, and Japanese PM Kishida on Saturday. Sunak, with his wife, visited the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in east Delhi to show he is the devout Hindu from the west.
The leaders attending the summit include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Sunak, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not attending the summit.
There were five takeaways from the summit on its final day. They are:
1. Russia praises the G20 consensus declaration that avoids direct criticism of Moscow for the war in Ukraine as ‘balanced”.
2. EU official says the Ukraine issue was the most contentious issue and dragged out negotiations until the last moment.
3. G20 leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday gather at Rajghat, the memorial to the father of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, on the banks of the Yamuna River to pay their respects.
4. Britain commits $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund to help developing countries cope with climate change.
5. Mr. Biden skips final session of the summit, flies to Vietnam for talks.
Britain committed to providing $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help developing countries cope with climate change, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday at the G20 Leaders Summit . The pledge would be the biggest single funding commitment the U.K. has made to date to help the world tackle climate change, a government statement said. –
Modi, who took the G20 leaders to Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi, said: At the iconic Rajghat, the G20 family paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi – the beacon of peace, service, compassion and non-violence. As diverse nations converge, Gandhi Ji’s timeless ideals guide our collective vision for a harmonious, inclusive and prosperous global future, he said.
Wet feet dampened G20 leaders’s Gandhi tributes as the world leaders, except Biden, walked barefoot through puddle on the marble plinth because of the overnight showers. Biden opted for felt slippers.
Discussions on the G20 leaders’ declaration went on till the last moment and the Ukraine war was the most contentious issue before a consensus was reached, a European Union official, who did not want to be identified, said on Sunday.
200 HOURS OF NEGOTIATIONS: It took over 200 hours of non-stop negotiations by a team of Indian diplomats to deliver a consensus on the G20 declaration that was adopted at the Leaders’ Summit here, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Sunday.
The team of diplomats, including joint secretaries Eenam Gambhir and K. Nagraj Naidu, held 300 bilateral meetings and circulated 15 drafts with their counterparts on the contentious Ukraine conflict to drive home a consensus that was clinched on the first day of the G20 Leaders Summit itself.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold a working lunch meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France on Sunday. Macron was the last leader to arrive in Delhi on Saturday for the summit.
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