The UK brought together foreign and development ministers from G7 countries, as well as guests from the Indo-Pacific region and Africa, this week for decisive co-ordinated action on shared global challenges and threats.

The first face-to-face meeting of foreign ministers in over two years combined the UK’s diplomatic and development expertise to help deliver progress on the UK’s overall G7 Presidency goal of building back better from the Covid-19 pandemic. The Leaders’ Summit takes place in Cornwall next month.

Following two days of constructive talks, the group of like-minded nations reached a powerful agreement to work together to defend democracy, uphold basic freedoms and human rights and step up support to protect those hardest hit by crises such as Covid-19, climate change and famine.

At the meetings, which took place in London, G7 countries agreed to:

Tackle the biggest geopolitical threats by:

• calling out the concerning Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s border
• agreeing tough, further measures on Myanmar if the military refuses to change course
• committing to future support for the Afghan Government, conditional on progress on the peace process
• setting out a united, balanced approach on China with the strongest condemnation yet of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, G7 commitment to tackle forced labour camps and calling out China’s coercive economic practices.

Safeguard democracy though:

• more action on defending media freedom around the world by local G7 diplomatic missions, backed by increased funding to the Global Media Defence Fund
• bolstering our Rapid Response Mechanism, including through a new NATO partnership that will counter threats like vaccine disinformation
• G7 collaboration to deter the abhorrent practice of arbitrary detention, including a new Canadian-driven Action Plan.

Support a sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and help those hardest hit by crises through:

• landmark collective action to improve access to life-saving vaccines
• two new ambitious girls’ education targets: 40 million more girls in school by 2026 and 20 million more girls reading by the time they leave primary school
• agreement to invest $15 billion to support women with new economic opportunities
• a new famine prevention and humanitarian crises agreement – mobilising collective diplomatic action to promote international humanitarian law and collectively contributing over £5bn in humanitarian aid to the 42 countries one step away from catastrophe or famine
• a commitment to make people safer from climate disasters, through early warning, better preparedness and early action
• actions to scale up the finance needed to help countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

2021 marks a crucial year of international leadership for the UK. In addition to the G7 Summit in Cornwall next month, later this year we will host COP26 in Glasgow. In July we will host the Global Education Summit to help drive action towards the newly agreed global targets to get 40 million more girls into school, and 20 million more girls reading by age 10, by 2026, in low and lower-middle-income countries.

Notes to editors:

Guests in attendance were India, Australia, the Republic of Korea, South Africa and the Chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Vaccines Access: The UK has agreed a statement with G7 countries outlining collective actions to strengthen global vaccine access. This includes action to increase funding for COVAX – the scheme to ensure vaccines are made available to all – and endorsing COVAX as the primary way for countries to share vaccines globally. G7 countries also committed to work with industry to expand manufacturing at scale of affordable Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics and avoid disruptions to the supply of Covid-19 products, like oxygen, needed for humanitarian purposes.

Famine Prevention: The G7 agreement commits G7 nations to urgently provide an initial £5 billion in humanitarian assistance to 42 countries at risk of catastrophe or famine, with further funding to follow over the course of this year. The initial funding includes £1 billion in aid prioritised to the three countries at greatest risk – Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria – to be provided as soon as possible to save lives. The support will ensure people have access to food, clean water and sanitation, that children have access to lifesaving malnutrition treatment and that all civilians are protected from violence. The G7 will also continue to lobby for safe humanitarian access for aid workers to ensure humanitarian support reaches those who urgently need it, particularly those in hard to reach areas and conflict zones. The G7 committed to supporting the World Bank Group and UN preparedness and early action work to ensure the international community acts to prevent crises as well as respond to them

Climate resilience and adaptation: The UK is using its COP26 Presidency to encourage greater action to help vulnerable countries build resilience to the impacts of climate change, from early warning systems to reduce suffering from climate-related disasters, to drought-resistant crops to cope with changing weather patterns and rising temperatures. G7 partners committed to do more to support vulnerable countries to improve their planning and response to disasters including by pre-agreeing emergency funding so that they can react immediately when disaster strikes.

G7 members also recognised the responsibility of private finance and the private sector in building countries’ resilience to climate change. Led by the UK’s CDC Group, a group of Development Finance Institutions put forward plans to increase the investments they make that build resilience, as well as ensuring the investments themselves are resilient to climate risk.

Good afternoon everyone, it’s great to be able to join you this year.

Over the next few months I suspect we’re going to be hearing a great deal about Angela’s legacy, Chancellor Merkel’s legacy, the incredible impact she has had on Germany, on Europe and indeed on the world.

And your work on climate change has been at the heart of that achievement.

You presided over the very first COP, more than a quarter of a century ago and I hadn’t remembered that you were of course the driving force behind the great leap forward that was the Kyoto Protocol.

And you created this now venerable institution in the climate calendar, an event that has consistently elevated climate change to the top of ministerial in-trays.

That is very important right now because as Svenja says, we can’t allow action on climate change to become another victim of this appalling pandemic.

This will be the decade in which we either rise up as one to tackle climate change together or else we sink together into the mire.

And this year, at COP26, will be the moment at which the world chooses which of those two fates awaits us.

But while the solution to our climate conundrum is on the surface of it simple – achieve net zero and limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5c – the complex nature of international diplomacy is such that we can’t just expect to make progress or hope to make progress in the 10 days of talks this November.

The stakes are too high for COP26 to become some kind of last-minute dash to the line.

And so it is absolutely vital that when we have time we should spend the next six months productively, untangling those knots and unblocking some of the stickiest issues.

If we do the hard miles now I hope that in November we can meet in person in Glasgow to hammer out the final details of what must be an era-defining outcome for our planet and for future generations.

And as hosts of COP26, we in the UK have a responsibility of course to make that happen.

So throughout this year Alok and I are pulling every lever, using every opportunity to make COP the success it needs to be.

And that, of course, includes next month’s G7 summit in Carbis Bay where leaders of the world’s biggest economies will be coming together, in person, face-to-face for the first time in far too long and climate change will be right at the heart of the agenda.

For one thing I can tell you the meeting itself will be completely carbon neutral.

But more significantly, it will be the first G7 at which every member has committed to hitting net zero by 2050.

Though in Angela’s case, in Germany’s case now, 2045, congratulations to you on your drive and your ambition.

That’s great news for our planet and shows us as G7 leading by example. But in Cornwall I want to see much more.

I will be seeking commitments from G7 members to use their voices and their votes wherever and whenever possible to support the transition to net zero, kick start a green industrial revolution, and build economies that can withstand whatever our changing climate throws at us.

And I also hope to secure a substantial pile of cash with which to help all countries to do that.

We simply must meet our existing commitments on climate finance, that long-overdue $100 billion a year target, and then we must go further still.

Because I think it is really up to us in the wealthier economies just to walk a mile in the shoes of developing nations.

Who are more likely to feel the effects of climate change, less able to withstand the impact it has, and all the while striving to raise the living standards of billions of people.

As those of us who have benefitted from 150 years of carbon-heavy industry lecture from the side lines about the need for clean growth.

Developed nations cannot stop climate change on their own, but if we want others to leapfrog the dirty technology that did so much for us, then we have a moral and a practical obligation to help them do so.

That means putting our money where our mouth is, which is why the UK recently doubled its climate finance contribution.

At the G7 and other international fora I will not hesitate to bend the ear of my fellow leaders on the need for them to do the same.

Because if all that emerges from COP26 is more hot air than we have absolutely no chance of keeping our planet cool.

It must be a summit of agreement, of action, of deeds not words.

For that to happen then over the next six months we must be relentless in our ambition and determination, laying the foundations on which success will be built.

Today’s event is the latest stepping stone on the path to Glasgow.

So let’s use it to show the world just how serious we are about delivering the change we need.