Much the most serious issue facing political leaders at the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm this week was global warming. They have made substantial and welcome progress on it. That they did so is a tribute to their host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Her decision to set a high bar for a deal ahead of the summit helped to drive the bargaining. In contrast progress on aid for the world's poorest was extremely disappointing.
It has now been agreed that international negotiations on global warming will be conducted through the United Nations, with serious consideration being given to a 50 per cent reduction in carbon gas emissions by 2050. Confirmation of the UN's centrality heads off any possibility that the United States would try to set up its own process along with 14 of the world's other most serious polluters, as was foreshadowed in a speech by President Bush last week. These talks will still go ahead, including China and India, but within a UN framework aimed at agreeing by 2009 what should succeed the Kyoto agreement on carbon gas reductions which expires in 2012.
The much longer perspective to halve emissions by 2050 is voluntary and without specific annual targets; but it will be difficult to withdraw and does not displace the UN track. This outcome reflects a much greater awareness among US and other national leaderships and public opinions that the grave environmental deterioration clearly documented by scientific research must be taken with the utmost seriousness. Humanity has about a decade to halt and then reverse carbon gas emissions before fundamental environmental change occurs, whether by precise targeting of reductions, taxation, technological innovation or trading schemes. It is now much clearer how this can be done and the economic benefits of doing so sooner rather than later are far better understood. The G8 deal restores focus and direction to this monumental task.
Compared to that the package announced yesterday on aid for the world's poorest people, especially in Africa, is a great let-down. Commitments made at the G8 Gleneagles summit two years ago to "make poverty history" have not been delivered upon by a number of G8 members. G8 leaders said they would provide at least $60 billion to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, global diseases that have devastated African countries and their economies. But the declaration set no specific timetable, saying the money would flow "over the coming years." Those agitating for a much more generous and principled commitment will have to continue their campaigns.
As an annual gathering of the world's richest industrial democracies the G8 draws whatever legitimacy it has from effective outcomes capable of feeding into other multilateral and bilateral sets of relations. On this occasion the attendance of an emerging group of powerful states - India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa - usefully added to its potential influence on climate change, world trade and foreign policy issues.