The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvaopened this Monday the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro focusing on the fight against hunger, the climate crisis and criticizing the millions of dollars invested in wars. to the detriment of issues affecting the most vulnerable.
“I note with sadness that the world is worse off. We have the highest number of armed conflicts since World War II and the highest number of forced displacements ever recorded,” he said, while urging the world’s strongest economies to commit to the fight against poverty.
“I am sure that if awe add the responsibility of combating poverty, We can succeed in a very short time,” said Lula, who, citing data from the United Nations, estimated that 733 million people suffer from malnutrition.
“The ultimate symbol of our collective tragedy is hunger. and poverty (…) In a world that produces almost 6 billion tons of food a year, this is unacceptable. In a world whose military spending reaches 2.4 billion dollars, this is unacceptable,” the Brazilian president emphasized.
Lula pointed out that it is up to the large economies of the world “to put an end to this wound that shames humanity,” recalling that the G20 represents 85 percent of the world’s GDP, and for this reason Brazil has launched a global alliance against hunger and poverty that has already been ratified by more than 80 countries.
A few hours before addressing the delegations present in Rio de Janeiro, Lula had already made clear in an interview to Globonews his idea of to place poverty and hunger at the center of the debate ahead of wars, despite increased tension on the two main fronts, Ukraine and the Middle East.
“I have made it a point not to bring the war to the G20 because otherwise we would not discuss other things that are important for the people who are not at war, the poor people, lThe invisibles of a world that often does not pay attention to them,” he said.
Peace in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine
However, the Brazilian president has remarked his desire for peace in all open conflicts and recalled that since 1945 there had not been so many open fronts. “We are going to give the message that we want peace in the Gaza Strip, in Lebanon, in Ukraine. We want to end all wars,” he said.
Lula has explained that he has raised the summit around issues such as the hunger, displaced people, racial inequality, machismo, the climate crisis, or the reform of some international forums, at a time when billions of dollars are being spent on armaments. “War does not build,” he concluded.
Rio de Janeiro hosts until Tuesday a new G20 summit at a time of great tension, with numerous open crises, including those of Ukraine and the Middle East, and with the uncertainty of the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House as of January 2025.
It remains to be seen what the content of the joint statement to be launched this Tuesday, with issues generating friction, such as the war in Ukraine, the taxation of large fortunes, or the response to the environmental crisis, as has already been evident in recent days at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan.