31st G8 summit

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The 31st G8 summit is scheduled to be held from 6 to 8 July 2005 at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland and hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. As host, the UK has stated it intends to focus this G8 meeting on the issues of global climate change and the lack of economic development in Africa. Other announced items on the agenda are counter-terrorism, nonproliferation and reform in the Middle East.

On 19 June details of the security for the summit were leaked to the UK Independent on Sunday, because of concerns by an intelligence source that ministers were being "complacent".[1] (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=648029)

Contents
1 Priorities

1.1 Aid to Africa
1.2 Global warming

2 Activism
3 External links
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Priorities

Attendees

The heads of the G8 member states, and the European Union, are expected to attend. They are:

</table></table> Traditionally, the host country of the G8 summit sets the agenda for negotiations, which take place primarily between civil servants in the weeks before the summit itself, leading to a joint declaration which all countries can agree to sign. For the 2005 summit, the British government has set the priorities of supporting Africa's economic development (by agreeing to write off debts of the poorest countries, and to significantly increase aid) and of moving forward initiatives to research and combat global warming. Tony Blair had planned to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol by looking at how to include key developing countries (India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa) not included in it - principally by agreeing technology transfer of clean energy technologies in exchange for commitments on reduction of greenhouse gases.
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Aid to Africa

The traditional meeting of G8 finance ministers before the summit took place in London on 10 and 11 June 2005, hosted by Chancellor Gordon Brown. On 11 June, agreement was reached to write off one hundred percent of the $40 billion in debt owed by 18 Highly Indebted Poor Countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Fund. The ministers stated that twenty more countries with an additional $15 bn in debt, would be eligible for debt relief if they met targets on fighting corruption and eliminating impediments to private investment. The agreement, which required weeks of intense negotiations led by Brown, must be approved by the lending institutions to take effect.

Agreement was not reached on Brown's proposed International Finance Facility, partly because the United States said that its budget procedures meant it was unable to make the necessary long term funding commitments.

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Global warming

Development of a joint declaration on efforts to tackle global warming has been much less successful, principally because of a hardening of the US position of refusing to recognise the existence of global warming. The other G8 nations - France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Britain - have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and are committed to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. Hopes had been raise that the unprecedented joint declaration (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?latest=1&id=3222) by the G8 countries Academy of Sciences - including the US National Academy of Sciences - on the need for urgent action on global warming would help moderate the US negotiating position. Instead, the US has

  • Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';
  • Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
  • Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

The US also pulled out of financial pledges to fund a network of regional climate centres throughout Africa which were designed to monitor the unfolding impact of global warming. Other crucial schemes ditched by the US include the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up to help developing states develop economically while controlling greenhouse gas emissions. [2] (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1509877,00.html)

To pre-empt claims that flying so many people around the world to talk about global warming actually contributes substantially to it, the summit will be carbon neutral, with estimated cerbon emissions caused being offset by investment in carbon-reducing measures. One project installing solar water heaters and low-energy light-bulbs in a housing project in Cape Town will offset 5600 tonnes of CO2 annually, it is claimed.

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Activism

As with all recent G8 summits, the meeting is the focus of many advocacy campaigns, including the UK Make Poverty History campaign, and the anti-globalization movement.

In addition to the Make Poverty History coalition's efforts, Sir Bob Geldof has organised a series of concerts in all the G8 member states on 2 July, as well as concert in Edinburgh on 6 July. Unlike Live Aid 20 years prior (whose primary aim was to raise money), Live 8 aims to increase activism among the citizens of the G8 countries, and thus force their leaders into increasing their focus on world poverty.

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External links

Retrieved from "http://wikipedia.cas.ilstu.edu/index.php/31st_G8_summit"
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