The G7 leaders called for a grand vaccination coalition to combat the pandemic, predicting that the waves of mutants and variants that experts are warning could be more dangerous for mankind across the world. Against the ongoing havoc, Covax, a vaccination alliance backed by the WHO, is struggling with commitments for only 150 million doses against the actual needs to vaccinate people in poor countries by the end of the year. Summit’s pledge on vaccines for poorer nations fell far short of the 11 billion doses needed to end a pandemic that has claimed nearly four million lives and wrecked economies around the globe.

London sought to bring all sides together using the ‘soft power’ diplomacy of Queen Elizabeth II and her heir Prince Charles, at the reception for G7 leaders and EU chiefs. The host of G7 summit, British PM Johnson’s   call-to-action may not match Winston Churchill’s call of by gone days ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech in 1940 which could pave the way for a modern Allied effort against a viral invasion that has claimed more than 3.5 million lives and shattered billions of livelihoods. Drawing parallels to Churchill’s address to the British parliament in 1940 after the miraculous rescue of 338,000 British and Allied troops from Dunkirk in France by civilian boats ahead of the German advance. The Battle of France was lost, but the successful operation gave Churchill a platform to launch a global campaign against the Axis powers led by Germany. Knowing that only a concerted allied counter-offensive would save the world`s future after the failure of the WHO and the United Nations to rally countries early in 2020 when the  Covid-19 begun,  Johnson called nations to join forces against the coronavirus that does not respect borders, people or country across the world. He also said the West’s intentions to promote democratic values with concrete actions, ‘helping the world’s poorest countries to develop themselves in a way that is clean and green and sustainable’. Boris Johnson, host of the summit held in southwest England, had described Biden as a ‘big breath of fresh air’ and told the G7 stood united anew in its ‘democratic values’. German chancellor Angela Merkel, attending her last G7 expressed that Biden had brought ‘new momentum’ to resolving the world’s problems.

US President Biden and his colleagues from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan called to start up  the power of democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights to overcome the greatest challenges being faced by the world. Earlier, at a news conference before heading on to a NATO summit  and showdown talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden believed his fellow leaders agreed ‘America is back at the table and fully engaged in a ‘contest with autocracies’ but was not seeking ‘conflict’ with Beijing or Moscow. On the other hand G7’s call contradicting China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative the allies adopted a US initiative to ‘collectively catalyse’ hundreds of billions of infrastructure investment for a rival G7 plan called the ‘Build Back Better World’ project. Biden termed the project saying it would be ‘much more equitable’ than China’s own lending spree in the developing world.

Attending G7 talks as guests India and South Africa had pressed for the gathering to waive intellectual property rights on Western vaccines. Thugh, campaigners complained the G7 had failed to flesh out how it will pay for a newly agreed ‘Nature Compact’ – aimed to protect 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans from despoliation by 2030. Again, Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at aid group Oxfam said G7 summit will live on in infamy, when the world ‘Faced with the biggest health emergency marked by climate catastrophe that is destroying our planet, but the summit leaders have completely failed to meet the challenges of our times.’The G7 leaders also condemned Beijing over rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. French president Emmanuel Macron welcomed the G7’s resurgence under Biden as a ‘collection of democracies’, adding that the West also had to work with Beijing. Nevertheless, the G7 risked inflaming tensions further by pressing China to let experts from the World Health Organisation further investigate how Covid-19 first emerged.

The people of the globe will be  eagerly looking after the future actions of the G7 leaders to combat the global havoc.