February 26

Part I Session 3: Fallout of the COVID19 Pandemic and Crisis of Multilateralism

In Breakout Session 3, the discussion focused on how international frameworks and cooperation among developed and developing countries functioned in response to challenges posed by global issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, what issues were revealed by the current crisis, and how international cooperation should be undertaken in the future. While multilateralism is facing a crisis, there have been examples of cooperation systems functioning in the field in response to pandemics, and the importance of building such a foundation has been pointed out.

Asia took to heart the lessons of the 2003 SARS epidemic, and efforts to share information to enable early responses and to strengthen the core capacity of individual countries have produced some good results. Several international organizations have collaborated to establish COVAX as a framework for the globally equitable supply of vaccines. On the other hand, it was pointed out that the WHO’s initial response was slow, and the need to review the International Health Regulations (IHR) as well as strengthen the capacity to speed up decisions based on expert knowledge of unknown viruses was pointed out. In the supply of vaccines, production capacity has been insufficient to meet the demand, and there are concerns about delays in supply to developing countries, as well as problems such as insufficient infrastructure for distribution at the vaccination stage.

On the climate change front, it is encouraging that the Biden administration in the United States has accelerated its efforts to become carbon-neutral and has returned to the Paris Agreement. On the other hand, the view was expressed that it would be extremely difficult to realistically achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement at a time when the world's GDP and population, including those of developing countries, are expanding. It was pointed out that bottom-up approaches, including changes in the behavior of citizens and consumers as well as binding international agreements, are essential. Economic intervention through a carbon tax was also discussed, and it was pointed out that, if a transparent and level playing system is not established, there is a risk that such a tax would hinder free trade and be abused as a diplomatic retaliatory measure.

Watch the video