G8 meetings to focus on economic crisis and climate change

The G8 meetings provide an opportunity to discuss global issues in an
informal setting and they are not a negotiating forum. Originally
scheduled to be held in La Maddalena in the island of Sardinia, the
venue was shifted to the austere setting of a military training school
in L'Aquila in the middle of the Abruzzo region in central Italy that
was hit by an earthquake on April 6. This move was Italian Prime
Minister Berlusconi's way of showing empathy and bringing the leaders
closer to the people and their concerns. The G8 that started out as an
exclusive club of the industrial nations has over the years expanded
its reach to bring in other countries into the dialogue process. The
major dialogue partners are the G5 countries – Brazil, China, India,
Mexico and South Africa. In addition, Egypt has been invited to this
year's meetings. Australia, Indonesia and South Korea are being
brought into the meetings to constitute the major economies forum
along with the European Commission and the major multilateral
organisations. In all, the leaders meeting in Italy represent 90 per
cent of the world's economy.India sees the G8 as a useful and
effective forum for discussing issues of the global economy and moving
things forward in international institutions. The format of the
meetings is a compromise between the original exclusivity and the
broader expansion of the dialogue.
The Heiligendamm dialogue process between the G8 and the G5 was
started at the summit in Germany in 2007 and focuses on innovation,
including intellectual property rights, investments including ethical
business conduct, energy and economic development. Four working groups
have been appointed to study the issues and they will be submitting
their reports at this summit.
The two major issues to be addressed at this summit will be economic
recovery and climate change. The process of bringing about a greater
coordination of policies to reverse the current downturn and making
regulation more effective that was started at the G20 London summit in
April will be taken forward now even as the G20 Pittsburg summit
approaches later this year.The discussions on climate change at the
meeting of major economies forum — accounting for 80 per cent of the
global carbon emissions — are considered critical in the run-up to the
Copenhagen summit on climate change to be held in December.Several
unresolved issues remain in this area, with the industrial countries
pushing China and India to move to a less polluting path to
development while the developing countries, particularly India, want
the developed world to cut back its emissions sharply — by 40 per cent
below 1990 levels by 2020. While the meetings in Italy are not
expected to resolve all the issues, a strong declaration of political
commitment to move towards an agreement in Copenhagen is expected.In
addition to the summit meetings, Dr. Singh will be holding a series of
bilateral meetings with the leaders who have assembled here.

The Hindu, July 8