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G8: Climate Change High On Summit Agenda

Catherine Makino

TOKYO, Jun 27 2008 (IPS) - The leaders of the world's most industrialised nations are now arriving in Japan for the Group of Eight (G8) Summit, Jul. 7-9. In the northern mountain resort of Lake Toyako they will confront challenges of climate change, the food shortage, and development, especially in Africa. Other agenda items are likely to include Japan’s recent bilateral summit with Hu Jinatao of China, as well as measures to control rising global fuel prices and nuclear proliferation.

The G8 Summit is an international forum for the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each year the hosting of the G8 alternates among the member states. This year’s chair is Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who will set the agenda and determine which ministerial meetings will take place.

Global warming will be the centerpiece and the benchmark issue in which the world will evaluate the success of the G8. "Global warming is a huge challenge, and humanity has no time to lose," Fukuda said, "The international community must urgently strengthen its efforts to resolve this issue."

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura has promised that Japan will try its best to show its leadership to create an agreement between developed and developing countries dealing with climate change. As host of the G8 Summit, Japan is working towards establishing a framework with fair and equitable emission targets in which all major emitters participate. Komura called on Brazil, India and the U.S. to join the new framework.

An extended group of outreach countries will join the G8 leaders on the third day of the summit process. The "Outreach Five" are leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. International NGOs working on environment, development, human rights and peace issues will also attend the Summit, along with leaders of other democracies, including Australia, South Korea and Indonesia as well as leaders from several African countries.

We’re at a critical juncture toward framing the Post Kyoto Framework to tackle climate change, according to Japan’s Press Deputy Secretary Tomohiko Taniguchi. "Japan with its close alliance with the U.S. on one hand and its proximity to China, which is one of the largest emitters, should play a great role at the G8 to come up with a regime all the emitters would find acceptable and the one that does work."

NGOs and climatologist warn that this year’s Summit must send a strong signal that developed nations have to set tough reduction targets by next year to replace the Kyoto Protocol. If not, global warming will continue and result in a climate catastrophe long before mid-century.

"We need a new commitment beyond the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, and the new framework is to be agreed by the end of 2008 at Copenhagen," said Yurika Ayukawa, vice chair of the 2008 G8 Summit NGO Forum. "To make this happen, the G8 needs to send a strong signal since responsible countries have caused the global warming by emitting so much greenhouse gases in the last 100 years," added Ayukawa, who served as climate policy senior officer for World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Japan before retiring in April.

If developing countries do not agree to do their share in any way beyond 2012, the U.S. or Japan may leave the Kyoto Framework, or any international agreements. "And the whole process of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] will collapse, which means the efforts made since 1990 will be in vain," Ayukawa told IPS.

Strong messages from previous G8s have already accelerated the UNFCCC process in the previous three years. Ayukawa wants Fukuda and U.S. President George W. Bush to consider the urgency of climate change because there is little time left to address its dangerous impacts. "To show leadership, the two countries, as two rich nations, should promise to commit to deep cuts of greenhouse gases now, not later," she said.

Still, Ayukawa sees little hope regarding climate change. "Japan and the U.S. are against strong commitments in the near-term, against a mid-term goal for 2020, and because of this, the developing countries are opposing any agreements on a longer-term vision of halving the global emission by 2050," she says, stressing that, "there may be no agreement made at this year’s G8."

However, Fukuda wants an agreement reached at the summit and environmental issues are his top priority. "He wants an international policy to promote Japanese leadership on environmental issues, post Kyoto Protocol," says Weston Konishi, Council of Foreign Relations Hitachi Fellow in Japan.

Fukuda also wants to use the G8 to showcase his leadership on the world stage arm-in-arm with leaders of the other major nations, according to Konishi. "He’s hoping that this will help boost his image at home, at a time when he is trying to improve his public support rate." Fukuda’s approval rating stands at 25 percent, according to a Kyodo News opinion poll.

There has also been speculation that Fukuda might dissolve the lower house of the Diet and call a general election after the Summit. It is not certain if the Summit will give Fukuda enough of a ratings boost to provide a clear advantage in an election, according to Konishi.

If this round of the Summit is anything like previous ones, then it is likely to have the same outcome: that is, a big to do about nothing.