09
July 2008 - Toyako, Japan — When you're
in the business of saving the future - and
you give yourself a specific deadline, such
as 2050 - you need to make sure that every
single day between then and now counts.
Unfortunately, the G8 Summit was a waste
of three whole days. Gathering in Toyako,
Japan, G8 leaders offered nothing new on
the food crisis, gave the wrong answer to
rising oil prices and deferred climate action.
Our political advisor,
Daniel Mittler, who was in Toyako throughout,
has been providing regular updates: from
the wet and dismal start to the proceedings,
through the G8's working lunches, working
dinners and working lunches while discussing
the global food crisis, and to the bitter
end - a final statement that showed they
hadn't made much progress whatsoever.
So what have we learned
from the G8's three wasted days?
1. Never do today what
you can keep putting off until tomorrow...
Global emissions have to start falling by
2015 and must be cut by more than 50 percent
by 2050, compared to 11000 levels. With
the G8 countries accounting for 62 percent
of greenhouse gas emissions, it's clear
that industrialised countries need to take
the lead, cutting emissions by at least
30 percent by 2020, and by between 80 and
90 percent by 2050.
The G8 in fact called
on the world to aim for a 50 percent goal
- and not more - in 2050, and failed to
give any clear commitments on mid-term measures;
this is simply not good enough. We need
action today.
The World Bank Climate
Investment Funds that the G8 has announced
do not even exclude coal, the world's most
polluting energy source. Unless we end our
addiction to fossil fuels and start an energy
revolution based on renewable energy and
energy efficiency now, the world of 2050
will be a nightmarish one indeed.
All the G8 leaders have
effectively done is postpone the responsibility
for tackling global climate change to future
generations; to the politicians who succeed
them, and to the children who will have
to live in the nightmare world of 2050 as
envisioned by the G8.
2. Never miss the opportunity
- whatever the crisis - to make a quick
sale…
Bush, Berlusconi and others have used the
G8 meeting to act as lobbyists for their
own energy giants, trying to sell dangerous,
expensive and uninsurable nuclear power
plants.
It's a fact that nuclear
energy today is based on risky reactors,
leads to proliferation and security hazards
and produces long lived deadly nuclear waste
with no solution for its safe disposal.
To say that nuclear
power will save the climate is absurd and
downright dangerous. We need solutions based
on renewables and energy efficiency to defeat
climate change and ensure true energy security.
It's not even as though
it's difficult for the G8 to find these
solutions - we set it all out, loud and
clear, for them in our Energy [R]evolution
scenario last year. Maybe it's time for
the G8 leaders to get their heads down into
reading this report, instead of having their
heads in the (hopefully, not mushroom-shaped)
clouds.
3. You can have your
cake and eat it - so long as it's genetically
modified…
It's said, "You are what you eat."
Yet, the G8 continues to support treating
our soil like dirt, contaminating our water
with toxic chemicals and the planting of
more GE crops that yield less and fail under
bad weather conditions.
Industrial agriculture
has undermined global food security and
led us to a food crisis. Rather than shift
public investment to proven ecological methods
that provide higher yields, better food
and more resilience to climate change, the
G8 leaders repeat their usual mantra that
countries should rely on the global market
for their food security.
On top of this, Bush,
Berlusconi and others have been pushing
for genetically engineered food as the solution
to the food crisis. They pretend that liberalising
trade will lower food prices. It has not
and will not - all it will do is drive poor
farmers, especially those in the developing
world, off their land.
We need farming that
is ecological and biodiverse, rather than
continuing with chemical-intensive farming
or pursuing the false promise of genetic
engineering. We need public investment in
research and development on ecological and
climate change resilient farming; the end
of funding for GE crops and the prohibition
of patents on seeds; and the phasing out
of the most toxic chemicals and the elimination
of environmentally-destructive agricultural
subsidies.
It was time for G8 leaders
to admit that their old policies have failed
and that they need to start building a trade
system based on equity and sustainability;
that 'business as usual' is not an option.
Instead, they fell back on their usual ritual
of calling for a swift end to the Doha Round
of trade talks, failing to recognise that
further trade liberalisation will spell
disaster for poor people and the environment.
As Daniel Mittler's
reports show, the G8 leaders had plenty
of food…but little thought.
4. Acknowledge the problem,
and hopefully it'll go away…
The G8 acknowledged there are unsustainable
biofuels - but didn't do anything about
them.
Due to this inaction
even more land will be diverted away from
food production - mandatory biofuel targets
in developed countries need to be suspended
and legislation introduced to ensure biofuel
production does not threaten food security,
particularly in developing countries.
And due to this inaction,
even more forests will be felled - increasing
global climate change. Protecting intact
forests is crucial for preserving biodiversity
and combating climate change.
Oil is running out,
but the answer to the world's transport
needs does not lie with unsustainable biofuels.
In order to satisfy the rich world's addiction
to cars, instead we are simply driving deforestation,
driving the food crisis and driving climate
change.
It seems the G8 may
have driven through all the climate red
lights and stop signs in Toyako.
5. Always look on the
bright side of life…
While the Arctic ice is melting, the G8
froze into inaction. Instead of protecting
the climate, the G8 effectively protected
the interests of industry, most notably
the nuclear and GE industries. We're no
further forward than where we were a year
ago, at the last G8 meeting in Heiligendamm.
But, the one good thing
about this G8 meeting is that it was US
President George W. Bush's last.
