Another day, another Dollar and another G8 meeting concludes. This years G8 summit was hosted in Italy by teen-loving media magnet, soon to be divorced, Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. As per usual, the heads of state from the top eight economic countries came together to sip champagne, shake hands and discuss affairs of state. This year the G8 leaders were also joined by the heads of state from Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Mexico, Nigeria and Egypt. Unfortunately the ‘all smiles and pie’ affair was overshadowed as President Hu Jintao of China was forced to leave the summit early in order to stop another Tiananmen Square-like massacre in Xinjiang province. Despite the international incident the remaining world leaders pressed on to discuss the agenda of climate change, economic reforms and foreign aid.
The main focus of the summit was given over to discussions about global warming policies and CO2 emission cuts. In a statement the G8 member states agreed to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, they also agreed that global average temperatures should not exceed a threshold of 2C above pre-industrial levels. Although the G8 members made significant international progress on climate change, they were unable to get other developed and developing nations to agree to emission cuts. Both India and China refused to meet the proposed 50% cut for developing nations by 2050.
Many people, including the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, criticised the G8 agreement arguing that, once again not enough had been done to significantly tackle climate change effectively. He also suggested that the 2050 targets agreed upon were ephemeral, and instead argued that setting up targets for 2020 would have been more realistic and worthwhile.
The remainder of the summit concerned the continuing economic crisis and an ambitious African foreign aid plan championed by US President Barack Obama. In a final announcement the G8 leaders pledged $20bn to help boost food supplies and agriculture in Africa. Concerning the new agreement, President Obama stated “we believe that the purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it’s no longer needed, to help people become self-sufficient, provide for their families and lift their standards of living.”
[...] credentials both at home and on the international stage. Having recently concluded a moderately successful G8 summit both leaders are keen to see the world community take greater action on global warming and CO2 [...]
[...] how successful with the eagerly anticipated conference be? As regular readers may remember back in July we covered the G8 meeting in Rome. At the meeting in Italy the fresh-faced US president Barack Obama and various other heads of state [...]