G8 leaders: all gas and no brakes

crash: strange dangers
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Avaaz Titanic ad for Bali talks, Dec 2007
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At the G8 summit in Japan, Harper, Fukuda, and Bush are trying to block any reference to UNFCCC climate targets for the year 2020 -- just as they did at Bali in Dec 2007, where global protest turned the tide. Negotiators from the South rose, one after another, to demand that the spoilers step aside. NGOs launched petitions -- including an Avaaz letter signed by 320,000 members in the final 72 hours. In tomorrow`s Financial Times, Avaaz will run another petition with a satirical advertisement. It will be delivered to the hotel room of every G8 delegate, so that no leader can ignore the political cost of shirking responsibility.

What the political leaders of the rich nations should be doing:
See the world's leading climate science and policy experts including James E. Hansen, Gwyn Prins, David Steven, Alex Evans, Shuzo Nishioka, and Ted Nordhaus on video

Friends of the Earth ask the G8 to block the World Bank's controversial Climate Investment Funds (ex-Clean Technology Fund)' currently supported by the United States, the UK and Japan and their corporate friends, who hope to reap $billion profits on technology transfers to the 3rd world, especially China. According to FOE, the WB scheme will

• undermine the UNFCCC post-Kyoto talks,
• increase debt,
• pay polluters [both in the 3rd world and the 1st world, especially coal companies - Ed.]
• threaten Indigenous Peoples' land rights through the Bank's forestry offset funds

Greenpeace calls on the G8 to:

• increase public investment in research and development on ecological and climate change-resilient farming
• stop funding for GE crops and prohibit patents on seeds
• phase out the most toxic chemicals and eliminate environmentally destructive agricultural subsidies;
• protect domestic food production and drop mandatory targets to increase the ratio of biofuels used in transport.

[see our previous post on G8 and the food summit - Ed.]
also
George Monbiot's analysis of the Bali talks; NY Times analysis of Hokkaido results.
Yelena Zagorodnaya`s report on Fukuda's climate promises at Davos in Jan 2008.
Olive Heffernan`s Hokkaido blog for Nature magazine.