Boris Johnson: G7 must work together so 'whole world can come through this pandemic together'

“But there is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations – we’ve got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it’s no use one country being far ahead of another, we’ve got to move together.

“So, one of the things that I know that colleagues will be wanting to do is to ensure that we distribute vaccines at cost around the world,[to] make sure everybody gets the vaccines that they need, so that the whole world can come through this pandemic together.”

Mr Johnson’s opening remarks at the summit of the G7, whose presidency is held by the UK this year, followed his commitment to giving most of Britain’s surplus vaccine doses to poorer countries.

The UK has ordered more than 400 million doses of various vaccines, which will mean, in all likelihood, that many will be left over once all the country’s adults are inoculated against coronavirus.

Britain has already given £548m to Covax, the UN-led attempt to get vaccines out to poorer countries. But even if the Covax plan works, it's only designed to cover 20% of each nation's population, which is well short of the so-called “herd immunity” expected to be achieved in the richer nations.

Some 130 countries have not yet begun any vaccinations and healthcare workers in those countries remain at high risk.

In his opening remarks from No 10 to the G7- made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US - the PM referred to the global action needed to tackle climate change, referencing the Cop26 international summit in Glasgow this November.

He said he wanted to ensure that “building back better” and the “green technology that we are all going to use to tackle climate change” delivered the “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new green collar jobs that we know it can produce”.

Mr Johnson went on: “Jobs and growth is what we are going to need after this pandemic and the ‘build back better’ operation offers the right way forward.”

He noted how the slogan was one used by Joe Biden, the US President, noting: “He may have nicked it from us but I certainly nicked it from somewhere else; probably some UN disaster relief programme.”

Mr Biden could be seen laughing on the video call on the screen inside the Cabinet Room.

The PM continued: “This is the right moment for us all to focus on the other great natural challenge about which we’ve been warned time and time and time again.

“We can’t ignore it – the warnings have been even clearer than they were for Covid – and that is the problem of climate change, and that’s why we’re going to be working very hard to get some great things done at G7 on our plans for the Cop26 summit that we are holding along with our Italian friends in Glasgow in November.

“It’s great, by the way, that Joe has brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Change Accords; a great step forward.”

Mr Johnson concluded his opening statement by saying: “The G7 is the great gathering of like-minded, liberal, free-trading democracies. It is a very, very important forum.

“We stand together on many issues around the world; whether it is our views on the coup in Myanmar, where our foreign ministers jointly expressed their strong view, or on the detention of Alexei Navalny in Moscow, where again we have condemned it.”

The PM also expressed his hope during the meeting that the G7 leaders would be able to meet “face to face” for the summit in Cornwall in June.

As with many virtual meetings, the start of the call had some hitches. Germany’s Angela Merkel appeared to forget to put herself on mute and inadvertently interrupted Mr Johnson’s opening remarks while Emmanuel Macron, the French President, was around 15 seconds late.