Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
ROUNDTABLE Korea, India, Australia to take part in G7-plus Summit
The following are excerpts of statements from the ambassadors to Korea from the guest countries to this year's G7 Summit ― India and Australia ― and Korea's G20/G7 Sherpa during a roundtable co-hosted by The Korea Times and the Korea Foundation ahead of the G7 Summit slated for June 11 to 13 in the U.K. The excerpts are edited for clarity. ― ED.
Korea pledges to become more responsible international player
Korea's G20/G7 Sherpa Choi Kyong-lim / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
By Kwon Mee-yoo
In terms of priorities in attending this meeting, we have two: health and climate change. We believe that if the G7 Summit this year can produce actions and commitments in these two areas, it will send a very powerful signal to the world that the G7 is back.
On health, we have one immediate task and one medium- to long-term task. The immediate task is to address the serious gap in the distribution of vaccines between developed and developing countries. It is understandable that each government wants to take care of its own citizens first, but we must also keep in mind that nobody is safe until everyone is safe. So, we first have to make sure that we can substantially increase the supply of vaccines and then help developing countries acquire them.
In the medium- to long-term, we have to find ways to strengthen international health systems so that we can better prepare for and respond to future pandemics. We will have to strengthen the World Health Organization. We will also have to establish effective partnerships among governments, international organizations, private businesses and academia so that we can develop critical strategies to manage and prepare for future pandemics.
On climate change, I don't have to stress enough the importance of this issue. And the hosting country of this year's G7 Summit, the U.K., has set out ambitious goals on climate change, including securing the commitment for net zero emissions by 2050 and substantially increasing climate finance. We welcome this ambitious goals.
At the Leaders Summit on Climate in April, President Moon made a pledge to submit an updated plan for substantial greenhouse gas reduction before the end of this year. And he also pledged that we will stop public financing for overseas coal power plant projects.
With regard to the potential difficulties achieving the net zero goal by 2050, there are some experts who are not very optimistic about the prospects, but there are other groups of experts who believe that with the development of technology, it is not entirely impossible. Let's remind ourselves that only a few years back, automated driving without human driver and 100 percent electric-powered vehicle was seen as a dream for distant future. Now, they are very close to our everyday life. We cannot rule out the possibility that we will have very rapid development in technology that can help us achieve the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The pace of technological development in many areas indeed encouraged us to think optimistically.
The government is now developing a couple of detailed scenarios, in which we can achieve our net zero commitment by 2050. And these scenarios will be finalized before the end of this year.
We also welcome the U.K.'s plans to discuss ways to cope with threats to democracy at the June summit. We agreed that it is important for leading democracies to issue a unified message supporting human rights, fundamental freedoms and economic openness as well as the rules-based multilateral system. With political commitment and close cooperation, we will be able to have a very productive G7 Summit. And if we can do that, it will represent a turning point for multilateralism.
Threats to open societies and democracy do not just come from a certain area or country. They come from across the globe and by focusing too much on a specific area, we may risk losing sight of threats coming from other parts of the world. We also have threats to democracy coming from within our own societies such as rising inequality, racism, extremism and decreasing tolerance toward differences.
The G7 is a group of leading economies and it does not intend to reach an agreement among themselves that they will impose on other countries and it cannot. But what it can do is set ambitious goals for themselves and hope that the other countries to follow suit.
India calls for developed countries to take more responsibilities
Indian Ambassador to Korea Sripriya Ranganathan / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
We are pleased to get the invitation from the U.K. in the upcoming G7-plus Summit and it is a great pleasure to have this opportunity to share what we see of this upcoming Summit and to also hear other guest countries' perspectives on what they are perceiving as the likely outcomes and the takeaways from this gathering.
I think that there are some very fundamental challenges that you face today and some of these have been identified by the U.K. presidency as top priority in terms of what could be the agenda for the G7 meeting. These are climate change, handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and what do we need to do, as fellow open societies, to advance the cause of democracy across the world.
What can we do to address this COVID-19 challenge? None of us is safe until all of us are safe, and I think this is a very clear perspective we have in India. We would be very keen to see what we can do to forge cooperation, bring genuine solidarity and bring about science-based approaches in dealing with this pandemic.
Vaccine development is one such area where I think we all need to join and genome sequencing is one area where there is a lot of scope for us to work together. We welcome the U.K.'s spotlight on the theme of protecting people's health and strengthening resilience during its presidency.
We are seeking the support of all G7 countries to the proposal that India and South Africa have together advanced to the WTO for a waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement, so that we will be able to enable COVID-19 vaccine access to countries around the world. This will be one of goals from the conversations at the summit.
We believe that the G7 countries are after all the richest and the most technologically and scientifically advanced countries of the world and they must demonstrate leadership in this issue and resist the tendency of vaccine nationalism, cornering the supply of vaccines for their own nationals which they must share with countries and peoples around the world.
We support the U.K.'s efforts to steer the agenda on climate change and climate action, in which we have a lot of interest and desire to contribute to. As many other things, including climate change, cannot be tackled in silos. We need to join hands and work together to achieve our goals.
Developed countries need to contain their emissions and provide that carbon space to developing countries so that they are able to bring about the sustainable development of their economies and bring up the people to a more acceptable level of development so that the equitable justice can be brought about.
In this context, we wholeheartedly welcome the U.K.'s call to the G7 and other developed countries to meet the legally binding commitments under the Paris Agreement and to meet the target of $100 million annually for climate financing. I think the G7 consensus on fresh commitments on climate finance and technology transfer, consistent with common but differentiated responsibilities, will be a big step forward.
As to what we have done in India, we are the only G20 country that is on track to achieve our Paris Agreement commitments and we have achieved a critical percentage reduction in emission intensity over the period between 2005 and 2016.
Another agenda that has been identified by the U.K. presidency is inclusive economic recovery. We would welcome the efforts of the G7 and its outreach partners to defend and promote economic openness that is anchored around a free and open trading system governed by international rules and standards.
The U.K. presidency has also come up with an open society statement in which India is very actively engaged. We have shared values of democracy, protection of human rights, freedom of expression, belief in a strong, inclusive, pluralist way of life. And we see the value of dialogue with like-minded countries to check the rate of threats that has been posed to all of us by rising vandalism, terrorism, violent extremism and economic coercion. We will be working with our partners to defend and promote our shared values. A strong and visionary statement emanating from the G7-plus Summit in this context, we believe, would be a very powerful message.
Australia shows effort in gender equality, women's empowerment
Australian Ambassador to Korea Catherine Raper / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Australia is honored to be a guest at the 2021 G7 Summit in Cornwall, alongside India, the Republic of Korea and South Africa. We appreciate the U.K.'s invitation and with our fellow outreach partners, look forward to bringing our Indo-Pacific perspective to these very important discussions because we feel that is a contribution that Australia can make.
We do see that Australia and the G7 share a great deal of common ground on issues like our approach to the COVID-19 crisis, the need for equitable distribution of vaccines, gender equality and women's empowerment, and defending the rules-based international order from which we have all benefitted.
The response to a pandemic that does not respect borders has underlined, most profoundly, that institutions and forums like the G7 alongside those such as the G20, the WHO, the WTO and the OECD really do matter. And the Cornwall summit is an opportunity for the G7 and outreach partners to reaffirm our shared values as open democratic societies, and identify ways that we can strengthen cooperation in many areas of shared interest.
As liberal democracies, our collective leadership truly can guide the global economic recovery and drive genuine progress on the defining strategic issues of our time. So we're looking forward to capitalizing on these opportunities to promote and defend our shared interests and values, and to continue to shape international rules and norms for the benefit of all.
With our partners in the G7, and more broadly, we are working to ensure that our collective strategic interests are protected against those that seek to do us harm. This includes maintaining an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific, underpinned by the rule of law and respect for sovereignty.
In regards to Australia's support for an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific, we're very much about bringing that discussion to the G7. We see that our environment and the regional environment has become increasingly challenging and the geostrategic challenges have grown much in recent years.
Alongside fellow guest countries, also from this region, we came to have a discussion about what we can do to support the type of region that we want. That's based on freedom of choice and sovereignty, based on international law and respect for rules and norms, and ensuring countries can pursue their own interests and choices.
We see many opportunities for other like-minded countries in the region to work on issues of common interest. For example, we see a lot of synergy between the approaches that Australia takes to the region and Korea's New Southern Policy. So we are exploring the synergy of common elements so that they can be pulling in the same direction to achieve good outcomes for the region.
Turning to gender issues, Australia will be a clear voice in Cornwall on the need to address gender equality and women's empowerment issues. We want to see real progress, including addressing the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on women.
Australia led the way at the G20 Summit in Brisbane a few years ago to secure a commitment to reduce the gap between women's and men's workforce participation by 2025 and will continue to push for its achievement in the G20 context as well as the G7 context.
Turning to climate, Australia will also continue to advocate a productive outcome at COP26 and an ambitious climate agenda that puts technological solutions and R&D at the heart of our pathway to reach net zero emissions.
Reducing emissions, while maintaining economic growth, is one of the defining challenges of our time. Getting low-emissions technologies to technical and commercial parity will make achieving net zero practically possible.
The G7's focus on climate adaptation and resilience is important to us as well, especially following the devastating bushfires, cyclones and floods Australians have endured in recent years.
We look forward to working with the G7 and fellow outreach partners to identify opportunities for coordinated, practical action to deliver results that advance our ambitious global agenda.
It is all about collaboration and coordinated action. We can make a huge impact working together.