G8 pledges action on food, oil
09/07/2008 15h12
TOYAKO (AFP) - Leaders of the world's top industrial powers ended a summit Wednesday with pledges to act on soaring oil and food prices, but failed to bridge deep differences with poor nations on fighting climate change.
US President George W. Bush hailed his last Group of Eight summit, at which rich nations agreed to at least halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as "very productive".
"I'm pleased to report that we've had significant success," Bush said before he left the resort venue where the annual summit was held in the mountains of northern Japan.
Emerging nations invited to attend a special summit on tackling global warming however declined to back the G8's much-touted carbon emissions goals, saying they amounted to empty rhetoric.
The global economy, under threat from skyrocketing oil and food prices and also being battered by the subprime mortgage crisis that has infected global financial markets, preoccupied the leaders.
"At the heart of the summit were the triple shocks to the world economy: rising oil prices, rising food prices and the credit crunch," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The G8 powers -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- account for two-thirds of the world's gross domestic product.
Their leaders said in a joint statement that while global growth had "moderated," they remained positive on the future.
They called for efforts to bring down oil prices, which have jumped five-fold since 2003, as well as the soaring cost of food which has set off riots in parts of the developing world.
"There's a need to improve transparency on the oil market," Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference.
G8 leaders also called on all countries to end export restrictions on food to allow supplies to be sent to countries that most need them, Fukuda said.
The summit was dominated by discussions on global warming amid growing concern that rising temperatures caused by carbon emissions are threatening entire species of plants and animals.
The rich countries' club on Tuesday agreed on the need for a global emissions cut of at least 50 percent by 2050, a step praised by G8 leaders as progress after years of hesitation by Bush.
"This, against a 1990 baseline, is a clear step forward. But we must go further," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.
But Fukuda said he believed the baseline was current levels and developing countries slammed the statement as too weak.
Leaders including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tussled with rich nations at a special expanded summit on Wednesday.
The deadlock between rich and developing nations has held up talks on reaching a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen -- a goal set in December at a UN-backed conference in Bali.
"Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our time," the 16 leaders said in a statement. "Our nations will continue to work constructively together to promote the success of the Copenhagen climate change conference."
But their statement said only that rich countries would implement their own goals for cutting greenhouse emissions while developing major economies would also take action, without proposing any numbers.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso defended the summit outcome.
"It is quite wrong to see this in terms of a confrontation between developed and developing countries," he said. "Of course we accept the lion's share of responsibility but this is a global challenge which requires a global response.
But the so-called Group of Five -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa -- has demanded that rich nations take the lead, saying they were historically responsible for climate change.
"Until there's a change in the decision of the United States, South Africa finds it very difficult for the G5 to move forward," South African Environment Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk told reporters.
Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF environmental group's Global Climate Initiative, accused rich nations of trying to stall action by putting the onus on developing countries.
"Some rich nations get lost in tactics and seem to forget that the survival of people and nature crucially depends on their leadership," he said.
The United States is the only major industrial country to reject the Kyoto Protocol, the current climate change treaty, with Bush arguing that it is unfair as it makes no demands of fast-growing emerging economies.
Leaders also made time to address the crisis in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe won a violence-marred election after his chief rival dropped out.
The summit "made it clear we would impose new sanctions against an illegitimate regime that has blood on its hands," Brown said, rallying world support for UN sanctions on Harare.
Next year's G8 summit will be held on the Italian island of Sardinia where emerging nations will again be invited to join the dialogue.
G8 Meeting Ends in Germany with Weak Promises on Climate Change and Africa
Largely echoing the 2005 G8 (Group of 8) Summit in Scotland in 2005, the annual G8 summit has ended with a series of meaningless statements on "climate change" and aid to Africa. The summit, described by many observers as the most divided in the G8's 32-year existence (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/372876.html), failed to accomplish its pre-summit goals on climate change and has received widespread criticism from NGOs.
Despite a "compromise" deal on climate change that overcame some opposition from the United States and recognized the danger of global warming, the G8 has been criticized by environmental groups for failing to take serious steps to address global warming. The United States and Russia agreed only to "consider" steps being taken by other nations and made no pledge to reduce their emissions. The six remaining G8 nations pledged to reduce emissions, although the G8's statements are non-binding. Greenpeace rejected the G8's actions, summarizing them with the statement "G8 to act on climate change, later... maybe," as did Friends of the Earth.
On aid to Africa, the G8's actions were similar. Despite the G8's continued statements that they will live up to previous promises of aid to Africa, Oxfam criticized the G8 for breaking their 2005 promise on aid to Africa. While the summit pledged "new" aid to Africa, Oxfam pointed out that this at most amount to $3 billion in aid or $27 billion short of the $30 billion promised in 2005. Aid for HIV prevention in Africa will also fall short of the 2005 goal, reaching only $23 billion of the $50 billion by 2010. The announcements of new aid were described by NGOs as "smokescreens" designed to hide the dismal failure of the G8 on Africa.
Protests at the summit received substantial media coverage early on following clashes between police and protestors the weekend before the summit began. Throughout the week, there were a series of protests targeting both the G8 and capitalism, and addressing issues ranging from migration to agriculture. Once the summit began, protestors effectively blockaded the summit for two days, turning away delegates and forcing them to be brought in via helicopter. Protests were held outside of Germany as well, with solidarity demonstrations taking place in a variety of cities including Portland, Chicago, and San Francisco in the United States and around the world St. Petersburg, Santiago, and Thessaloniki.
Throughout the summit, the corporate media's coverage downplayed the reasons why people were opposed to the G8, highlighted protestor "violence," and favorably reported on the G8's "action" on climate change and Africa. Aside from the excellent coverage of the protests provided by the Indymedia network--in particular the Germany and UK sites--protestors also focused on deconstructing the corporate media and public relations "spin" surrounding the protest. The Unspin the G8 website features an archive of corporate media coverage of the summit and analyses of how the coverage frames messages about the G8 and the protestors.
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