Emmanuel Macron called at a summit in Paris for another overhaul of the global taxation system to finance the fight against poverty and climate change, building on recent efforts for a minimum levy on corporations.
The French president hosted world leaders including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, as well as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, to discuss new ways to raise climate financing.
The talks aim to build momentum for an overhaul of the global lending architecture so that multilateral institutions like the World Bank can do more to help developing nations deal with climate change and raise private investment. Bloomberg Philanthropies is one of the official sponsors of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged the international community to address global inequality and treat it like a challenge as important as climate change. If economic and education inequality are not tackled urgently, climate concerns will become a joke compared with the magnitude of the problems facing the world, he said. Still, Lula insisted that Brazil will meet all its environmental commitments and doesn’t need to “cut trees.”
The Brazilian president took a swipe at the world order, blasting the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions for being incapable of addressing global issues and assisting those in need. He said global trade should be conducted using a variety of currencies, not only the US dollar.
Lula also criticised the European Union for the so-called side-letter it sent to the Mercosur bloc of South American countries with new demands ahead of a potential trade agreement.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it’s time for action to provide developing countries with better access to the funds needed to boost investment in the green transition.
“It’s important that we always walk as we talk,” Scholz said at the summit. “So it’s always important that especially the economically more stable and successful countries make their contributions and that they stick to the things they say all the time.”
Scholz said private companies will also play an important role in providing the needed funds and that the G-20 process known as Compact for Africa is key in pushing ahead with reforms on the ground in those countries so that businesses are more willing to invest. Public subsidies alone cannot solve the problem, the chancellor added.
