G8 summit marked by impotence and division

[Joanne98]

Facing what is arguably its most serious crisis since the end of the Second World War, the global capitalist economy has never been in greater need of co-ordinated policies from the world’s major national governments.

But unity and collaboration in the face of the mounting problems posed by climate change, oil and food price hikes and the ever-present threat of recession, have been conspicuously absent from the meeting of the G8 major industrial nations being held in Hokkaido, Japan, this week.

Nowhere were the divisions more apparent than in yesterday’s statement on climate change. After much behind the scenes negotiations, the G8 meeting finally agreed to a communiqué in which the major industrial powers agreed to a “vision” of “achieving at least 50 percent reduction of global emissions by 2050.” However, in order to secure agreement from US President George Bush, who has refused to name any target in the absence of commitments from India and China, the statement added a rider “recognising that this global challenge can only be met by a global response, in particular, by the contributions from all major economies.”

The statement was dismissed by scientists as lagging far behind what was needed to arrest global climate change.

“They could have made progress here by being more specific on the near-term commitments that industrialised countries were willing to make to reduce their own emissions, but they don’t have agreement on that,” Aiden Meyer, a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said.

“They could have been more specific on reductions by 2050 from what base year, but they don’t have agreement on that.”

James Hansen, a leading climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said it was “a pretence that understand the problem. In reality, they are taking actions that guarantee that we deliver to our children climate catastrophes that are out of their control.”

The G8 statement failed to make any commitment on emission reductions over the next decade, action that is regarded as vital. The chairman of the UN’s panel of climate scientists, Rajendra Pachauri, said “very vital details” were missing from the statement. “The sooner we start reducing emissions, the greater the likelihood of avoiding some of the more serious impacts and temperature increases that are going to take place a decade or so down the road,” he said.

The statement was met with immediate criticism from the G5 group of so-called developing countries—Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Mexico—that are scheduled to meet with G8 today.

“Responsibility shouldn’t fall on developing countries for what is an unavoidable responsibility of developed nations,” said Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

South Africa’s environment minister Marthinaus van Schalkwyk called the G8 statement an “empty slogan without substance.”

“While the statement may appear as a movement forward, we are concerned that it may, in effect, be a regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change. To be meaningful and credible, a long-term goal must have a base year. It must be underpinned by ambitious mid-term targets and actions,” he said.

In any case, even if such commitments were made, they would not prove any more substantial than those made on world poverty. Three years ago, amid great fanfare at the Gleneagles meeting in Scotland, the G8 leaders agreed to increase aid to Africa by $25 billion by the year 2010. As the Hokkaido meeting was being convened it was revealed that a mere 14 percent of the target had been met.


World economy

The G8’s commitments on the world economy were no more specific than those on climate change. The organisation was set up in 1975 to develop co-ordinated action to meet the problems posed by recession and the financial turmoil resulting from the oil price shock of 1973-74. Three and a half decades on, with the world economy facing what the International Monetary Fund has designated as the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression, such action would seem to be in order.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/g8-j09.shtml