Italy G8: Poverty of Principles and Fragile Gimmicks-III

-By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

 *****

Usual G-8 Gimmicks

As speculated, the fragile state of the world economy dominated the first day of the G8 show in Italy, with rich nations acknowledging there were still significant risks to financial stability. President Barack Obama urged emerging economies to "do more" to curb global warming, while the U.N. chief demanded developed countries set an example and take more concrete steps to reduce pollution.  While economic issues remained the focus of the summit, climate also found its fullest possible space in the debates; however, that its resolution did not find clear cut support for emission control demonstrates unwillingness on the part of the G8. The G-8 has painted a bleak future too.  In a way as to sum up the Summit, the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said progress on climate change at the G8 was "not enough" so far. "This is politically and morally (an) imperative and historic responsibility ... for the future of humanity, even for the future of the planet Earth," the U.N. chief said, stressing the urgency to reduce the carbon emissions.  Instead of take toughest possible decisions involving all nations for a time frame, the G8 is misused to target the weak nations..

Two days of negotiations between the world's major industrial polluters and developing nations, as expected, failed to make any major breakthrough on firm commitments to reduce carbon emissions; nor did they make any sincere economic commitments to weaker nations. While both sides said for the first time that global average temperatures shouldn't rise over 2 degrees Celsius, they didn't set any joint targets to reach that goal. And significantly, the G8 nations made no firm commitment to help developing countries financially cope with the effects of rising seas, increased droughts and floods, or provide the technology to make their carbon-heavy economies more climate-friendly.

The statement insists on reducing the proliferation risks associated with the spread of enrichment and reprocessing facilities, equipment and technology, we welcome the progress that continues to be made by the NSG on mechanisms to strengthen controls on transfers of such enrichment and reprocessing items and technology,". While noting that the NSG has not yet reached consensus on this issue, the G-8 finale agreed that NSG discussions have yielded useful and constructive proposals contained in the NSG's ''clean text'' developed at the 2008 November 20, Consultative Group meeting.

That would mean, the G-8 did set a long-term commitment to reduce their carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 - possibly just for fun. But they made no shorter-term target, despite warnings from a U.N. panel that they must cut emissions between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels 150 years ago. The MEF agreed to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) versus pre-industrial levels but not to agree on the scale of emission cuts. Obama said there was still time to close the gap with developing powers on climate change, after the U.N. chief criticized the G8 for not going hard enough. The top polluters want to scuttle the emissions project altogether.. That goes against all human norms and ethics.

(Ir)Relevance of G8

G8 is perhaps the economic version of NATO with more powers in it. The economic clout and global terror nexus among them could make G8 plus even be more arrogant in the years to come. Possibly, the annual G8 Leaders' Summit is the highest-profile and most important event in the G8 profit process. Some 90% of the world's economy was represented at the Italy G8 Summit in the expanded working sessions. Western capitalist powers are worried about the relevance of G8 in today's new economic power centers among third world nations.

European nations feel that the forum has become redundant and irrelevant for containing the growing economic evils. Several G8 critics tend to focus on economic issues in challenging the format's continued relevance. Crisis in global capitalism plus recessions and meltdowns have troubled the richest nations.  The collapse of the Soviet Union had left many Russians and foreigners doubtful of Moscow's standing as a great power. The decision to offer Russia coveted G-8 membership helped secure Moscow's acceptance of NATO and EU membership for other former Soviet bloc members. G8 is trying to co-opt both Russia and China into the format for political reasons like North Korea and Iran, without letting them have the cake and eat it too. A few years later, cooperation between Russia and Western governments within the context of the G-8 helped bring an end to the Kosovo War. The group exerted additional influence on Moscow, since the leaders of the new Russian Federation aspired to full G-8 membership plus a WTO seat.

Citing the decreasing share of the economic resources and clout at the group's disposal, proposals are afoot to replace it with other, more inclusive body such as G-14, G-20 or G 28.. Such a focus, however, might neglect another important aspect of the work conducted by the G-8: Since the 1980s, the group's annual meetings have given rise to important international security initiatives, which have been sustained and further developed over time. The G-8's purpose is to promote cooperation among the world's most influential countries in response to the most important global challenges. During the 1980s, its agenda changed to include urgent political and security developments, especially in the Middle East. The G-8 began to address energy security, international terrorism, regional conflicts, and new nonproliferation threats. In recent years, limiting climate change and the disruptive effects of globalization have migrated to the top of the agenda. Terrorism plank is being co-opted into the G8 to bully the non-G8.

 

G-8 summit have become ritual events for high parties, besides secretly deciding about capitalist economic agenda for the developing world. However, without the annual G-8 summits, it would become much harder to focus the bureaucracies of busy governments on all vital economic-cum-security issues. In recent years, the G8 have accounted for almost three-fourths of global military expenditures. France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the USA possess over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. In many respects, the G-8 serves as a useful complement to the UN Security Council (UNSC), with approximately the same number of permanent members. Not surprisingly, the G-8 suffers from the same criticism as the UNSC -- namely, that it is elitist and dominated by the great powers. On the one hand, the G-8 does not include China, which is a permanent UNSC member. On the other hand, the group includes economic powerhouses Germany and Japan, which lack regular representation on the UNSC. The G-8's lack of a formal veto process, combined with the proximity of its members' most important national leaders, often makes it an easier venue in which to secure rapid agreement on a course of action.

Instead of universal denuclearization, the G8 also presses for the selective punishments and undertakes peace meal approach which makes no sense at all. . The group of eight developed countries have vowed to curb transfer enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology and equipment, surprising India as it goes against the spirit of Nuclear Suppliers Group's "clean" waiver to it. In a joint statement on non-proliferation, the G-8 nations also pushed other members of the 45-nation NSG to reach a consensus within this year to disallow transfer of ENR to countries which are not signatories to NPT. The NSG had last September been coerced by New Delhi for "clean" and "full" waiver for civil nuclear cooperation with the world despite it being a non-signatory to NPT. A draft MEF document dropped any reference to this and aimed instead for agreement on the need to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.  Cindy Baxter of Greenpeace said G8 leaders were "watering down climate ambitions," a bad omen for December's U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen seeking a successor to the Kyoto pact, since emission cuts are a prerequisite for limiting temperature rises.

Climate change has to be dealt with adequately. As Leaders met in L'Aquila, a mountain town wrecked by April's earthquake and a fitting backdrop to talks on a global economy struggling to overcome the worst recession in living memory, Britain hoped to receive strong support in its current stand-off with Iran over a detained embassy workers for the ailed anti-Ahamadinejad coup while other leaders looked at the prospects for nuclear weapons reductions following talks between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. They packed first day wrapped up with talks on an array of international issues, including Iran's post-election violence and nuclear program without blaming the Western powers for inciting violence in Tehran. However, all these gimmicks are unlikely to lead to any immediate action, such as a tightening of sanctions which the Zionist nuclear regime insists on. Western nuclear double-speaks must end. Obama did announce that the Group of 20 major economies would take up the climate financing issue at their meeting in September in Pittsburgh - a move environmentalists said could help break the logjam while sending developing countries a signal that the G-8 is serious about financing.

-----------------------

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

Specialist on State Terrorism

Independent Researcher in International Affairs, The only Indian to have gone through entire India, a fraud and terror nation in South Asia.