By Jaideep Sarin, IANS,
L’Aquila (Italy) : The outreach meeting of the G8, the grouping of the world’s most wealthy and industrialized countries, with the world’s emerging economies G5, Thursday outlined that various global crises required systemic and optimistic resolutions even though they failed to resolve their differences on the climate change controversy.
The joint declaration released in this quake-hit Italian town, 100 km from Rome, announced to conclude the Doha development round on trade talks by 2010. The G8 agreed to the demands of the G5 to strengthen financial regulation and reform international financial and other institutions, including the United Nations (UN).
“We are committed to seek an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round in 2010,” the joint declaration said.
Ministers have been asked to meet before the G20 Pittsburg summit in the US September this year to bridge remaining gaps.
The Doha talks on trade had broken down July last year following differences between India and United States.
Trade protectionist policies of some countries, especially in the times of global economic crisis, have been given a thumbs down by the joint declaration of the G8 and G5 summit.
“We will resist protectionism and open markets for trade and investment.
We reject all protectionist measures in trade and investment.”
The emerging economies and developing countries had been saying that they were worst hit by the economic crisis and protectionist policies would spell doom for their economies.
“We are committed to advance reform processes in international organisations, including the UN, to reflect contemporary reality and challenges thus enhancing their relevance, legitimacy and efficiency.”
The G8 countries agreed to some of the major demands made by the G5 countries on tackling the present global economic crisis.
“We have acted more forcefully and cooperated more fully than in any earlier economic crisis. We are fully committed to implementing rapidly the Washington and the London summit decisions, including those to strengthen financial regulation and reform International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and to provide them with adequate resources.”
“It is further important to ensure that developing economies, in particular low income countries, are able to cope with the effects of the crisis,” the declaration said.
The G5 countries, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, had been demanding that solutions for the global financial crisis could not be found without keeping developing countries in the loop as they were the worst hit by the crisis.
The declaration made a strong commitment towards reforms in international financial and other institutions, a demand being made by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also, to make them more adaptable to present global realities.
The G8 and G5 have asked the Heiligendamm-L’Aquila Process (HAP) steering committee to examine coordinated approaches to strengthening the reform process of specialised international institutions dealing with food security issues. The declaration sought greater coordination among international agencies.
The declaration also resolved that all participating countries would refrain from competitive devaluations of currencies and promote a stable and well-functioning international monetary system.
But the G8 countries remained non-committal on setting targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, a demand being stressed by the G5 and other developing countries.
The joint document did not set targets of reducing emissions nor any dateline.
The G5 is demanding that the emissions be reduced by at least 40 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050. Developed countries are ready to reduce emissions by only 50 per cent till 2050, despite scientists across the world and developing countries urging them to reduce more emissions faster.
But differences between both sides over targets remained.
“We reconfirm our political will for reaching a comprehensive, fair, effective, agreed outcome, following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.”
“There is not much willingness among the developed countries to set the 2020 targets. Developing countries want a sharp decrease in emissions – at least by 40 percent by 2020,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran said here Thursday.
“The developed countries have been the biggest polluters and have to share their historical responsibility on it. India spends 2.5 percent of its GDP on the fallout of climate change like natural disasters. Technology is the key to reducing emissions and developed countries will have step in for this,” Saran added.
Climate change is affecting farm output, making droughts, floods and storms more severe and more frequent and raising the sea level. India is one of the worst-affected countries.
Global NGOs shadowing the G8-G5 summit said Thursday that any possibility of the G8 countries coming with a 2020 target had been scuppered by Russia, which has long opposed any cap on its greenhouse gas emissions.