G8-the club of eight major industrial countries met in L’Aquila, Italy from 8-10 July 2009 for their 35th Annual Summit. The venue of the summit was the very same central Italian city where an earthquake killed nearly 300 people in April this year. It was an expression of solidarity with the people of L’Aquila.

It is worth recalling that since the last G8 Summit at Hokkaido, Japan in June 2008, the world economic and financial situation has plunged from slowdown to a full-blown crisis.

Apart from Italy, which currently holds the G8 Presidency, there are 7 other members such as Canada, France, Germany, Japan, UK, USA and Russia. The outreach group known as G5 include China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa) who were invited to participate in some of the sessions. In total, an assortment of 15 countries and 9 International Organisations were specially invited.

Agenda

Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister and President of the Summit summed up the main issues of the meeting as: making new ground rules to tackle economic crisis; boosting international trade; restoring confidence of people to consume; Climate Change; Development of poor countries and Africa; Food security; and other International political issues.

Outcome

After three days of negotiations the leaders produced seven declarations and statements on:

• Responsible leadership for a sustainable future

• Political Issues

• Promoting the Global agenda

• Counter Terrorism

• Energy and Climate

• G8-Africa partnership on Water and Sanitation

• Global Food Security.

West Asia Peace

The summit hailed President Obama’s speech in Cairo reaching out to the Muslim world and reiterated its full support to the two-state solution of Palestinian-Israeli conflict and hoped that the process of negotiations would be hastened to establish peace in the entire region.

On Myanmar, the leaders expressed their indignation at the military junta having failed to make any progress in their meeting with the UN Secretary General recently. The leaders called for the release of all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi to ensure that the 2010 elections are fair and credible.

Iran & North Korea

On Iran, the leaders expressed dismay at the post-election violence and urged Iran to cooperate fully with IAEA and comply with the relevant UNSG resolutions without further delay. The Summit condemned North Korea for its nuclear test in May and launching of ballistic missiles in April this year.

USA on Board

The US, which was so far opposed to any climate deal has finally come on board. The commitment made by G8 countries will probably make negotiations easier at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Copenhagen in December this year.

It was significant for the complete absence of any short term goals. President Barak Obama, hoping to unite both the G8 and G5, chaired the session of Major Economies Forum (MEF), responsible for almost 80 percent of all evil emissions globally. As a silver lining, G8 for the first time agreed on specific emission reduction goals and agreed to finance and transfer green technologies to the developing countries. The industrial nations also agreed to reduce their emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Thus the main negotiation was on energy and climate change. The crucial sentences of the statement read: “We recognise the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees Celsius. In the context of the ultimate objective of the (UN) Convention and the Bali Action Plan, we will work between now and Copenhagen ... for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050.”

G5 countries wanted the developed countries to reduce their dreadful emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020. It was argued that without immediate restraints on emissions in the short-run, the world climate might drift towards irreversible damage. The effects of global warming are already being felt in many parts of the world. While some countries are experiencing shortages of water (e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa), others are threatened with floods and sea level rise as in Bangladesh and Maldives.

The G8 Leaders also agreed to achieve sustainable global food security and committed US$ 20 billion over the next three years to help food-insecure countries grow more food. For the first time emphasis has been laid on growing more food than on emergency food supplies to distressed countries.

Mainstreaming G5

Amidst stiff economic competition, the continued growth of G5 and other developing countries over the decades have now been recognized. It is becoming increasingly difficult for G8 leaders to resolve common global challenges, such as — economic crisis, climate change, free trade, food security etc all by themselves and they are turning to the emerging economies for support and assistance to achieve these goals.

The first instance of the G8 enlarging into G14 (G8 plus G5 plus Egypt) came when the declaration for Promoting the Global Agenda was signed on 9 July where a new acronym MEF (Major Economies Forum), was used.

The G5 leaders were invited by G8 leaders not as full members, but as leaders on the sidelines much to the chagrin of G5 leaders. The former want to be treated as full partners. They confer that there was a time when the G8 countries had set the agenda for the rest of the world. But with the emergence of economically and militarily strong nations — the G8 is now obliged to open its door to new entrants.

With the waning of influence of the United Nations over world affairs — Groups such as G8, G14, G15, G20 will probably become more and more relevant, even though the relevance of G8 will not fade away.