The three-day G8 meeting of the world’s wealthiest countries ended on Friday with the focus shifting from the vexed issues of climate change and reform of the world financial system to how to better aid the world’s poorest countries. Some have criticized the summit as vapid grandstanding for domestic audiences and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has not minced his words about what he considers the leaders’ inadequate commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For some observers, Friday’s discussions on Third World aid laid bare the failure of some G8 states to honor the pledges they made at the groundbreaking 2005 Geneagles summit in the UK. This year’s host nation, Italy, far from boosting its aid budget as it promised four years ago, has actually more than halved the amount it gives to struggling countries, particularly in Africa. Only Germany, the UK and the US have come close to keeping their 2005 promises. It was therefore possible for the leaders of these states to say with a clear conscience that the current economic downturn should not be used as an excuse by any wealthy country, to cut back on already breached aid commitments.
Whether other G8 leaders will actually be shamed into honoring their pledges is a moot point. But at least this summit has provided an opportunity for them to speak their minds to each other, just as soon as the cameras have stopped recording all the handshaking, big smiles and back-slapping that are now an obligatory part of such gatherings.
In this respect these events are not a waste of time. Leaders, whose decisions can have a profound effect on the way our world is run, need to meet and get the measure of each other. Equally they are now an opportunity for the shift in economic and geopolitical power to become more evident.
A little noted contribution from China was renewed thinking that the US dollar should be replaced as the world’s reserve currency. The Chinese hold $2 trillion of US government debt and are therefore financing a major portion of the unorthodox American bailout of its addled financial system. What Dai Bingguo, the Chinese state councilor who raised the issue in L’Aquila, did not say was what he thought might replace the greenback as a reserve currency. It was not something other G8 attendees wanted to consider, in and among all their other challenges. However, now the question has been asked openly, the challenge to the dollar’s hegemony can be expected to surface at future G8s.
Given the low expectations of this summit, there will have been few leaders who left Italy Friday night feeling particularly disappointed. All have urgent domestic problems waiting for them at home. But the international economic collapse has demonstrated that a prosperous world can only be rebuilt by international cooperation. No one country, not even the United States can manage it in isolation. Therefore these summits, for all their mock bonhomie, are essential to ensure wealthy nations all sing off something like the same song sheet.
