Climate Change Flap At The G8

It is tempting to compliment Merkel, as many have done. But anybody would look good beside Bush. In fact, given the immediate, extreme threat posed by global warming underlined by the most recent report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Merkel's proposal of a 50% reduction from1990 levels by 2050 figure is simply too little too late. As the German Green parliamentarian Barbel Hohn noted at a Berlin conference on Sunday, the rich countries should be talking about at least an 80% cutback.

A close look at a leaked draft of the G8 declaration reveals that the Merkel-Bush quarrel concerns details not substance. The guiding principle of the document's approach to climate change is to "decouple economic growth from energy use." In other words, economic growth remains central and sacrosanct, meaning that the G8 will not likely propose any cuts in consumption levels. For instance, instead of calling for a radical cutback in automobile use, the declaration accepts as given that the number of motor vehicles will double to 1.2 billion by 2020. It proposes to expand production and accelerate development of non-fossil fuel alternatives for future cars such as synthetic biofuels and carbon dioxide-free hydrogen.

The draft declaration cannot call for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions because its authors realize that maintaining a growing "efficient and competitive economy" while radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not technologically feasible at this point. The solution: lower the targets and try to convince the public that this is simply being realistic.

Looking for Technofixes

There are three elements in the declaration's strategy for dealing with climate change. One is increasing energy efficiency -- or getting more bang for every unit of energy generated.

A second element is diversification of the means of generating energy. Here the draft makes the obligatory nod toward renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The emphasis, however, is on nuclear. Indeed, the G8 draft goes out of its way to present nuclear energy, despite its proven dangers, as a key alternative because it allegedly contributes little to global warming. Specifically, the draft states that the G8 leaders "endorse the peaceful use of nuclear energy by those interested countries that are also committed to non-proliferation and international nuclear safety standards...endorse international initiatives to further develop peaceful and carbon-free nuclear energy and to realize the potential for nuclear energy to contribute to the energy needs of developing countries...[and] will examine creative ways for international finance to make nuclear energy more available to developing countries."

The third element is technological innovation. Here the document stresses accelerated development of futuristic technologies to address global warming. The paper specifically urges "prioritizing national and international research and technology cooperation...of the different carbon capture technologies and to clarify geotechnical conditions for secure CO2 storage." Indeed, the document is obsessed with technofixes, among them "clean coal, carbon capture and storage, offshore wind power, second generation biofuels, hydrogen..." Although he may be wrong that nuclear power is the way to deal with climate change, James Lovelock of Gaia fame is right that it will take 40 years before such new technologies become really feasible -- and by then it will be too late.

The only effective response to climate change is to radically reduce economic growth rates and consumption levels, particularly in the North, and in the very near future. The climate change section of the G8 declaration is a long and all-too-transparent exercise to get around this reality.

Promoting Investment and TRIPs

The other parts of the declaration are even worse.

Curiously enough, the declaration begins with a long warning to developing countries that "erecting barriers" to foreign investment flows will "result in a loss of prosperity." According to the document, "freedom of investment is a crucial pillar of economic growth, prosperity, and employment." The G8 is signaling to China, Brazil, India, and the other dynamic developing economies that their investment regimes need to be more hospitable to western investors.

Continuing in this vein, the second part of the document is also addressed to developing countries. Innovation, it says, is central to economic growth, and it can only continue to play this role if there is "strong protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights." The writing bears the fingerprints of the northern pharmaceutical industry and the high-tech lobbies. Here the G8 is warning Thailand, India, Brazil, and African countries to stop using methods like compulsory licensing to enable their populations to gain access to cheap drugs to fight HIV-AIDs and other pandemics, and telling China and the Southeast Asian countries to restrict the diffusion of advanced technologies through tighter enforcement of corporate intellectual property claims.

Targeting China, Recycling Africa

There is, interestingly, a section entitled "Responsibility for Raw Materials: Transparency and Sustainable Growth." The G8, the document states, seek "to support resource rich countries in their efforts to further expand their resource potentials while promoting sustainable development, human rights, and good governance." Why is the G8 suddenly concerned with "increased transparency'' in the extractive sector when their corporations have so long opposed efforts to control their depredations in the developing world? The answer is transparent in their "call on our trading partners to refrain from restraints on trade and distortion of competition in contravention of WTO rules and to observe market economy principles." China, which has been concluding scores of mineral extraction agreements in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, is undoubtedly the main target of this section. The document reflects the fear among many rich country governments and corporations that the Chinese might end up shutting them out of resource-rich areas.

As for the G8 Declaration on Africa, it is mainly a recycling of old, unfulfilled promises to increase development aid, along with the usual platitudes about promoting good governance and more effective public financial management, institutionalizing "market-friendly" development frameworks, and "improving our response to fragile states." At the Gleneagles summit in 2005, The Financial Times notes that, "the G8 committed itself to increasing overall annual aid levels by $50 billion by 2010 and doubling aid to Africa. Official figures show almost all these countries are behind their targets."

I usually don't agree with the Times editorial page. But this time it is hard to dispute its conclusion: "Nobody expects much from this increasingly outmoded talking shop of the complacent rich." I couldn't have said it better.

Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. He is currently in Rostock, Germany to observe the G8 meeting.