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July 13, 2005
G8: bye bye?
It seems as if the G8 just faded from view. Was its irrelevance covered by the saturated media coverage around the London Bombings?
The eight leaders of the industrialised world promised a doubling of aid to Africa worth $25bn by 2010, as well as a debt relief package covering an initial 17 countries. But there was nothing on trade liberalisation (ending US and European subsidies).
And we cannot expect much from the WTO in the future Doha round.
I heard very little about global warming. Oh, they did agree that to agree that climate change was a problem, that human activity led to greenhouse gas emissions and that emissions had to be stabilised and then reduced. Good oh, that's a start. A solid start you might say. Oh, and they are going to have a new dialogue when Kyoto expires in 2012. That should please the big energy users in the US and Australia.
But there was an action plan to address the possibility of global decline.
Was there anything about international economic governance to address the serious economic imbalances in the rapidly changing world economy? I heard nothing on this. It seems as if the G8 nations are not interested in international coordination. Then again, maybe they took advice from the Reserve Bank of Australia: the imbalances (eg., China's surpluses, the US & Australia's deficits) are really nothing to worry about. Things are looking good. Global economic growth will continue to expand. Any problems for Austtralia are manageable.
Have things shifted beyond the power of the G8? Is that what the irrelevance of the G8 means?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at July 13, 2005 10:51 AM
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Tracked on July 14, 2005 12:30 PM