The G8 Summit held on the Japanese island Hokkaido had ‘Cool Earth - Cool Summit’ as one of the mottoes. Held from July 7-9 at the Windsor Hotel in the town of Toyako on the shore of Lake Toya, the G8 Summit brought together 16 nations, including the Group of 8 industrialized nations: the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Britain and Russia; the Group of 5 emerging economics: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa; and three other important trading partners: Australia, South Korea and Indonesia.

Calling climate change as “one of the great global challenges of our time”, the G8 leaders pledged to reduce reliance on carbon by cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases by 50 percent by 2050.

China, India Differ

China and India later denounced the agreement and refused to endorse the targets on cutting emissions; arguing that cutting CO2 emissions was the responsibility of richer nations and that such an agreement would inevitably undermine the economic growth necessary to pull poor and developing nations out of poverty.

China and India together emit close to 25 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, a proportion that is steadily increasing as both coal-fueled economies boom. The G8 nations emit about 40 percent of the total. Perhaps the firm commitments and specific numbers for cutting greenhouse gas emissions will not come until next year at the International Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. Until then, the realities of climate change will remain unaddressed.

Making a Difference

The fact that G8 never comes up with binding agreements, as it is more about informal meetings and frank discussions can be a solace. The G8 used to be criticized as a capitalist group of powerful countries that determines world politics and economics without legitimacy like the UN. But there has not been much of such criticism at this year’s summit in Japan.

This time, lack of effectiveness was the most common criticism. The G8 is increasingly seen as a Western talking shop that often fails to act on its past promises on development aid and is increasingly unable to influence international economic affairs.

Africa Aid Promise

According to observers, the regreattable part in the G8 Summit was the reneging on promises made by G8 countries at Gleneagles that their aid budgets will be increased to £25 billion by 2010. Of this new money, £12.5 billion would go to Africa. But the fact is—so far, only £3.5 billion of extra aid has been delivered — barely 14 percent of the total amount promised. While Britain, America and Germany raised their development budgets to redeem their pledges, France, Canada and Italy backtracked. In fact, President Nicolas Sarkozy has even slashed the French spending on aid.

Criticism

G8’s newly stated ‘goal’ of a 50-percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 is slammed as vague. In political terms, the G8 statement on climate change is a carefully worded text that gives each G8 delegation something to take home.

However, the summit puts the onus on the negotiations for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol which is due to be wrapped up at a UN Summit in Copenhagen next year.

The G8 communique stated: “We seek to share with all Parties to the UNFCCC the vision of, and together with them to consider and adopt in the UNFCCC negotiations, the goal of achieving at least 50 percent reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognising that this global challenge can only be met by a global response, in particular, by the contributions from all major economies, consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”

Environmental campaigners slam the communique for missing out any mention of two key aspects to a deal: an interim target, for 2020 or 2030 for example, and a clear statement of the base year from which the reductions will be counted.

The Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, used the base year of 1990, which was dubbed advantageous for the Europeans and difficult for the Japanese, who had already made energy efficiency gains in the 1990s. Japan argued at this year’s G8 for a new base year of 2006, which would make it easier to meet any future targets.