In the intentions of the owner of the house, the Brazilian president Lula, G20 scheduled for today and tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro was supposed to be a summit dedicated to climate and the fight against poverty, through the establishment of a Global Alliance Against Hunger and an agreement to tax at least 2% the approximately three thousand people in the world who boast assets exceeding a billion dollars, using the proceeds, estimated at 250 billion dollars, to combat global warming. Instead, the scene they stole it from the US president Joe Biden, the Argentine one Javier Milei and even, at a distance, Russian Vladimir Putin, which by intensely bombing Ukraine on the eve of the meeting gave Biden the assist for a leading role in the exit: the White House in fact he gave the Green light for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to respond and attack even on Russian soil.
A shock that made us pass in second floor everything else: environment, inequalities and the UN Agenda. All themes that would have hardly ended up in the final document for the Milei's fierce opposition, fresh from a meeting with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and intent on denying Buenos Aires' signature on both the tax for the super-rich and the UN's sustainable development goals and gender equality.
A disappointing G20 for Lula's Brazil
For Lula, already weakened by an all-time low popularity, this G20 could become a slap in the face, since he had done everything to dodge the issues related to the conflicts, aware that his position on both Ukraine and the Middle East is not in line with that of NATO and is, if anything, closer to that of China. And instead the host was overtaken by events: Russia has stepped up its offensive and Biden has given the green light to the escalation from Manaus, in the Amazon, where he was to meet indigenous leaders on the eve of the summit. A historic visit, the first ever by a US president still in office, but which nevertheless was judged disappointing: the outgoing president announced theWhite House commitment to safeguard of the largest rainforest on the planet, but he knows full well that the Trump's successor won't keep his word, and promised a donation to the Amazon Fund of just 50 million dollars, much less than the half a billion that had been hypothesized some time ago.
Meloni: 40 billion investments in Brazil but Enel problem to be solved
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has also arrived in Rio Giorgia Meloni, which has already had a yesterday bilateral with Lula in which he said that the Italian companies they intend to invest 40 billion euros in Brazil, recalling the strong ties between the two countries: in the Portuguese-speaking country today live 800.000 Italians and about thirty million descendants of Italians. Italy and Brazil would therefore like update partnership agreements and economic cooperation with a new plan 2025-2030, but the Brazilian president did not fail to ask for an account of theoperated by Enel especially in Sao Paulo, where the Italian company is recovering from a very complicated year between blackouts, disruptions, fines and controversies. Some in the Brazilian political and institutional world have even threatened to terminate the contract: technically it is not possible, but Enel did not make a very good impression, just on the eve of the publication of the accounts.
