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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 15th, 2008 South African President Thabo Mbeki, who decades ago forged ties between the exiled African National Congress and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, has so far failed in his bid to ease the longtime leader into retirement. He now Jeoperdizes more then his own legacy, he in effect has “low-jacked” the future of all of Africa. Connection to Mugabe Threatens South African President’s Legacy. JOHANNESBURG — At first glance they are nothing alike. Zimbabwe’s aging president, Robert Mugabe, is, at 84, among the last of a generation of African Big Men, clinging to power through brutal repression. South Africa’s suave President Thabo Mbeki, nearly two decades younger, rules by popular mandate as the elected leader of one of the continent’s most robust democracies. But Mbeki’s long — and so far, failed — diplomatic bid to ease Mugabe into retirement after 28 years has tied the legacies of the two men together, and badly damaged Mbeki’s reputation as the exemplar of a new kind of African president. The leader President Bush described as “the point man” on solving the Zimbabwe crisis in 2003 now is widely regarded as an obstacle to freeing that nation from its steep descent into political and economic ruin. “I think he’s part of the problem at the moment,” said Willie Esterhuyse, a Mbeki friend and a professor of political philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch. Mbeki is one of a dwindling number of African leaders unwilling to publicly distance himself from Mugabe. The two men are products of strikingly similar worlds. Both are Christian-school-trained products of African liberation movements and have deep roots in communist ideology. Both have advanced degrees from British universities and rose within their parties on the strength of wits and political savvy rather than prowess on battlefields. Neither favors the traditional African dress worn by many of the continent’s leaders, appearing almost invariably in dark, tailored suits. And both enjoyed periods as favorites of Western powers, which for a time regarded each as skilled and cerebral alternatives to the populists common on much of the continent. Such a reaction would be unlikely today, as rising repression in Zimbabwe chills even those sympathetic to Mugabe’s efforts to redistribute wealth and undo the legacy of colonialism. Mbeki is almost alone among southern African leaders in not publicly voicing outrage. Biographer Mark Gevisser, in his book “Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred,” tells an anecdote that suggests an almost familial bond between the two men. In 1980, shortly after Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe, Mbeki was there as an emissary for South Africa’s exiled African National Congress. One night, he stayed out late drinking in Harare, the capital. His frantic wife reported Mbeki missing, a worrisome development at a time when South Africa’s apartheid government was attempting to assassinate its opponents. The next time the two men saw each other, Mugabe delivered a paternalistic scolding, waving his finger as he said, “Young man, you must tell us next time you don’t sleep at home.” The African National Congress had traditionally favored a rival of Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. But Mbeki, in those days in exile, forged a new relationship between the party and Mugabe’s new government. That connection still has a powerful hold on Mbeki, according to Gevisser, who said Mbeki remains convinced that he is essential to keeping Mugabe from growing still more brutal. “Whatever happens, he has got to keep the door open,” Gevisser said in an interview. Officials in Mbeki’s administration also have expressed deep reservations about Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Zimbabwean opposition. The former miner and union activist, though very popular in his country, has little formal education and has tried to organize the kind of internal political resistance that Mbeki’s African National Congress used to bring down apartheid. Mbeki long has enjoyed closer relations with other, more-polished opposition leaders in Zimbabwe, including Tsvangirai’s rival, Welshman Ncube, a law professor. In the just-finished election season, South African support was seen as crucial to the emergence of independent candidate Simba Makoni, Mugabe’s former finance minister, who broke from the ruling party to run for president. Tsvangirai was able to maintain his position as Zimbabwe’s dominant opposition leader — Makoni ended up with only 8 percent of the vote — but relations with Mbeki deteriorated further. Mbeki “respects Mugabe,” said Tendai Biti, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, Tsvangirai’s party. “He’s personally indebted to Mugabe because he looked after him during the struggle” against apartheid. “Whatever exists between Mbeki and Mugabe doesn’t exist between Mbeki and Tsvangirai,” Biti said. Mbeki’s approach has produced some moments that caused even supporters to cringe. On April 12, when southern African regional leaders gathered in neighboring Zambia for an emergency meeting on the Zimbabwean crisis, Mugabe refused to attend but Mbeki met with him anyway, in Harare. Photographers captured the two men, dressed almost identically in suits, wearing necklaces of fresh blossoms, smiling broadly as they clasped hands like old friends. In a news conference that day, Mbeki questioned whether there was a “crisis” in Zimbabwe at all. Also damaging was Mbeki’s attempt to host a mediation session on July 5, a week after Mugabe had declared victory in a reelection campaign that left nearly 100 opposition activists dead and thousands of others injured. Tsvangirai withdrew from the election and said there could be no negotiations until the attacks on his supporters ended. Mbeki ignored that condition and invited Tsvangirai to meet with Mugabe at his official residence, a setting that opposition leaders said would have conveyed an air of legitimacy to the election. Tsvangirai boycotted the meeting. Swazi election observer Marwick T. Khumalo, a member of the Pan-African Parliament, said that proposing talks at Mugabe’s residence showed “bad taste” on Mbeki’s part. Despite the failure of that meeting, negotiations of sorts have begun in Zimbabwe, under the oversight of South Africa. Though the opposition dismisses the talks as having no promise until Mugabe ends his campaign of state-sponsored violence, both sides acknowledge that in a nation with annual inflation measured in the millions of percent, there may be no other course. Yet Mbeki’s time for brokering a solution — and removing the stain of Mugabe from his own legacy — is rapidly dwindling. Mugabe, who continues to look remarkably vigorous for his age, could easily remain in office longer than Mbeki, whose second and final term as president is due to end in mid-2009. Mbeki’s legacy in Africa is “in tatters,” said Karima Brown, political editor of the South African newspaper Business Day. “Thabo Mbeki is really yesterday’s man. He’s done.” —————- African Union: Suspend Sudan genocide charge. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court charged Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide yesterday, accusing him of masterminding a campaign to “destroy” three tribes in Darfur, killing 35,000 people and persecuting 2.5 million refugees. Sudan’s state television promptly showed footage of Mr Bashir dancing at a traditional ceremony, and dismissing the charges. “Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes … will know that all of these things are lies,” he said. His efforts at building up a coalition of African, Arab and Asian support against the ICC also seemed to be paying dividends. Tanzania, which is chairing the African Union, called yesterday for the ICC to suspend the move “until we sort out the primary problems in Darfur and southern Sudan”. “If you arrest Bashir, you will create a leadership vacuum in Sudan. The outcome could be equal to that of Iraq,” Tanzania’s Foreign Minister, Bernard Membe, said. Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the charges and Sudan will also seek the support of close allies on the Security Council, including China, Russia and South Africa. It is the first time the ICC, based The Hague, has sought the arrest of a sitting head of state. In his landmark case, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor, said a three-year investigation had proved that ultimate responsibility for crimes in Darfur rested with the President. “The decision to start the genocide was taken by Bashir personally,” he said. “Bashir is executing this genocide without gas chambers, without bullets, without machetes. It is a genocide by attrition.” Mr Ocampo charged the Sudanese President with three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and rape, and two counts of war crimes. Armed groups from the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa tribes launched a rebellion in Darfur in 2003, protesting at their marginalisation. Sudan’s response was a brutal counter-insurgency, in which civilians were routinely targeted by government forces and Janjaweed militia. While President Bashir did not directly carry out attacks himself, he was the mastermind with “absolute control”, the prosecutor said. Hours after the charges were revealed, the BBC reported that the United Nations would withdraw all of its non-essential staff from Darfur. Prior to the indictment, there had been fears of a violent backlash against aid workers following protests in Khartoum. Human rights activists welcomed the indictment. “Charging President Bashir for the hideous crimes in Darfur shows that no one is above the law,” said Richard Dicker of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. But some analysts felt that the prosecutor was “over-reaching”. Alex de Waal, a Sudan analyst at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said: “It will be very hard to prove he directly authorised these crimes.” Others said the formal genocide charge might give the UN additional leverage to hammer out a peace deal. “The Security Council now has the option of saying if there are substantial steps towards peace we can put the prosecutions on hold,” said Nick Grono, the deputy president of the International Crisis Group, a conflict analysis think-tank. “There is an incentive to the regime where there hasn’t been in the past.” The onus now falls on the three pre-trial judges, from Brazil, Ghana and Lithuania, who will consider the evidence which Mr Ocampo’s team have collected and, if they agree, will issue an arrest warrant. The charges against Bashir *Three counts of genocide for killing members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. *Five counts of crimes against humanity for murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. *Two counts of war crimes for attacks on civilian populations in Darfur. ————— Mary Dejevsky: The UN fiasco over Zimbabwe is a re-run of Iraq - There was the touching faith in the miracles that can be wrought by drafting. The Independent, Tuesday, 15 July 2008 No wonder a bit of an inquest is in progress. When Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe, they pitched many weeks of painstaking British diplomatic planning straight into the fetid waters of the East River. And if anything could have been worse for the British government than defeat, it was that Gordon Brown and his ministers had clearly banked on victory. Surprise-avoidance being one of the prime objectives of diplomacy, this was a signal failure. A cardinal rule – and not only at the UN, but in parliaments everywhere – is that that if you are not confident of getting your way, you do your utmost to prevent a vote. And if a vote really cannot be forestalled, then you reword the document to make it harmless. Ministers and diplomats can spend many happy hours, days and even months in such prophylactic procrastination. This is part of their job. So it is understandable that the search is on for culprits, and that those in the immediate firing line are busy looking for other targets. The Foreign Office minister, Lord Malloch-Brown – who, by the way, as a former deputy secretary general of the UN surely knows to the last dot and comma how the organisation works – extricated himself with particular ingenuity. The vote, he said, had exposed the real positions of Russia and China and was, therefore, not a bad outcome at all. Now that the immediate shock of the vote has passed, two things have crystallised. The Government has – as it so often encourages the voters to do – “moved on”, and is taking its argument for sanctions to the European Union, a body for which the Prime Minister, who famously refused to be photographed signing the Lisbon Treaty, appears suddenly to have found a use. And the blame has settled – as it so often does – on the Russians as the real villains of the piece. According to this, their new President, Dmitry Medvedev, was all too pleased to tag along with the rich world when it censured Zimbabwe at last week’s G8 summit, but when it came to the broader forum of the UN, then Moscow suddenly had other interests to consider. The Russians are therefore guilty at very least of changing their mind. A more Machiavellian interpretation might be that they deliberately misled the British into believing that they would accept the imposition of sanctions, when, in fact, they were plotting to do the very opposite. There are several reasons why this rationalisation is unsatisfactory. The first is that, from the Russian perspective, signing up to the G8 condemnation and rejecting the UN resolution, are not actually incompatible positions. The second is that China, too, wielded its veto – and, given its interests in many African countries, including Zimbabwe, could hardly have been expected not to. But we don’t want to get on the wrong side of China, do we? Especially not on the eve of Beijing’s showcase Olympics. And the third is that, in the matter of misreading the mood of the UN and its Security Council, Britain has rather distressing form. Think back five years to the weeks before the invasion of Iraq and the frantic efforts applied by the British government to securing UN backing for the war. The warning resolution, 1441, was so expertly drafted – by Britain’s then UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock – that it allowed both supporters and opponents of war to vote for it. Squaring the circle, however, only postponed the inevitable split and made the failure of the crucial “second resolution” that much more painful for Britain when it came. All the very same weaknesses that combined to frustrate the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe were there for all to see over Iraq. There was the touching faith in the miracles that can be wrought by drafting – a skill on which Britain’s civil servants pride themselves, but which, if done too well, can come back to bite the author. There was the ill-tempered vilification of one country as the author of Britain’s misfortune: five years ago, it was France. As coincidence would have it, there was also an almost identical misreading of how Russia would cast its vote. Defeat at the UN on Zimbabwe sanctions is both less and more serious for Britain than the failure to agree on a “second resolution”. It is less serious because sanctions are almost always of questionable effectiveness, and because the lack of the “second resolution” forced Tony Blair, fatefully, to choose between the UN and the US. But it is more serious because defeat last Friday broke what had been a promising international consensus on Zimbabwe and allowed an illegitimately elected President to exult in a victory over his old enemies. We had a chance to forge a common stance on democracy in Zimbabwe, and we failed – not because of Russian perfidy or the inadequacies of the UN, but because, once again, we did not appreciate how others see the world. m.dejevsky at independent.co.uk ——————- Leading article: Save the elephant from China - Britain poised to approve China ivory licence. If the People’s Republic of China is licensed as an official buyer of elephant ivory at a UN meeting in Geneva today, it will be one of the biggest setbacks to have occurred in international wildlife conservation, and a dire threat to the future survival of elephants in the wild both in Africa and in Asia. China wants to be allowed to bid for ivory from four southern African countries – South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe – which were given permission to trade in ivory in 1997 in a misguided decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species – only eight years after Cites member states, including Britain, had agreed to ban the ivory trade completely all around the world. The 1989 total ban was seen as the only way to choke off the demand for ivory that was sending African elephant populations plunging at the hands of poachers. And it worked, and poaching declined sharply thereafter. The partial lifting of the ban in 1997 was a worrying development but, at least in the subsequent auction of 50 tons of ivory, the sale was limited to one country – Japan – as the other potential buyer, China, was regarded as having insufficient safeguards against illegal trading. Now another auction is in prospect, and China wants to join in, claiming that it has cleaned up its act. To allow it to do so would be disastrous. It does not matter how tight China’s enforcement procedures now are. Overnight the world market for ivory would balloon, providing myriad opportunities for illicit ivory to be laundered into the legal stock, and offering temptation to poachers right across Africa, where at least 20,000 elephants a year are currently being illegally killed. Disturbingly, the British Government, which has a vote in the meeting, looks as though it will go along with China’s wishes. Yet ministers will not come clean about Britain’s voting intentions. Yesterday they were engaged in that shabbiest of official procedures, hiding behind officials, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) claiming that the matter rested on the judgement of the Defra official at the meeting, Trevor Salmon. To pretend that the British Government’s policy on a question of major international importance is dependent solely on the view of a mid-ranking civil servant from Bristol is laughable. The Biodiversity minister, Joan Ruddock, needs to spell out what her position is, as does her boss, the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn. Britain should vote firmly against allowing China to buy ivory. If it does not, and the bad times return for yet another threatened species, at least we will know where responsibility lies. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 14th, 2008 UN’s Ban Slams Zimbabwe on Bias, But Lets Slide Russia’s Kosovo Critique and North Korea’s Lack of Voting and Human Rights Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, Saturday July 13, 2008 — Minutes after the UN Security Council’s draft resolution to impose sanctions on the Robert Mugabe government failed on July 11, subject to a rare double veto by both Russia and China, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the UN Boniface Chidyausiku told the Press that the office of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has shown it cannot “be an impartial arbiter of the situation in Zimbabwe.” Inner City Press asked him why the resolution’s proponents had insisted on calling a vote, even once they knew that there would be not only an abstention by Indonesia and five votes against, from South Africa, Viet Nam, Libya and Russia and China with their vetoes. It was “the arrogance of the Americans,” Chidyausiku said. Video here, from Minute 2:37.
On the evening of Saturday, July 12, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Michele Montas, issued a statement that “we strongly regret the highly inappropriate and unacceptable comments by the Permanent Representative of Zimbabwe questioning the Secretary-General’s impartiality toward events in Zimbabwe.” The response was at odds with the usual position, that the Secretary-General defers to and does not comment on the Security Council or member states. On July 9, about other Council member comments critical of Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas Inner City Press: Yesterday at the stakeout, Russian Ambassador Churkin said the Secretary-General had overstepped his bounds in the reconfiguration in Kosovo, and he specifically took issue with this idea that the EULEX force would not be reporting either to UNMIK or to the UN in New York. Is there any response to what Churkin said? Spokesperson Montas: This is the position, of course, of the Russian Ambassador and he expressed his opinion and that’s all I can say. But when Zimbabwe’s Ambassador similarly questioned the Secretariat’s actions, this same Spokesperson did not let it go as one Ambassador’s opinion and “that’s all I can say.” Rather, the Zimbabwean’s comments were strongly criticized as “highly inappropriate and unacceptable.”
Others contrast Ban Ki-moon’s approach to Zimbabwe with, for example, his approach to North Korea, another government which widely violates human rights, and which doesn’t even purport to have elections. In the past week, Inner City Press conducted an informal but wide-spread poll in the UN, whether people would rather live in Zimbabwe or North Korea. The results were similar to those in Equatorial Guinea, which Ban Ki-moon has not criticized — an over 90% win, in this this case for Zimbabwe as a comparatively better place to live than North Korea. But compare the UN’s statements. Here is what Zimbabwe’s Ambassador said on July 11: “We believe that the office of the Secretary-General is good offices for the resolution of any political situation in the world. He must have the perception that, that office is impartial. What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe, all the reports that have come from the Department of Political Affairs, are pro-opposition and they never say anything positive about the government of Zimbabwe. We believe they are partisan and with that type of an approach, there’s no way they can be impartial arbiter in the resolution of the situation in Zimbabwe.” The critique is of the Department of Political Affairs and “they,” that is, Team Ban. When the Secretariat has been making statements in recent weeks about Zimbabwe, a question was muttered, who is writing this stuff? Some pointed at the nationality of the head of the Department of Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. State Department official. Mr. Pascoe was slated, along with fellow American Robert Orr, to appear with Ban Ki-moon at his July 10 press conference. Perhaps concerned with how it would look, to finally appear for a sit-down press conference flanked by two senior advisers both from the same country, Ban ended up appearing accompanied on the rostrum only by his Spokesperson, who once again controlled the question-asking in such a way that none of these issues, including Kosovo and objectivity, were inquired into or addressed. Relatedly, in a small but telling detail, the Spokesperson’s daily summaries of press converage of the UN and Ban Ki-moon systemically omit certain critical and investigative coverage. In light of an interesting report of Ban reading in the Mugabe-controlled Herald of Harare of Chidyausiku’s critique, and laughingly commenting, I guess he doesn’t like me much, the shrill Saturday slap-down is all the more surprising. To be charitable, since Mr. Ban seems pleasant and has long been a diplomat, some wonder if all of the above originates with him. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2008 G8 climate rift emerges says the Toronto Star - PM Harper pushed softer deal on climate. Prime Minister Stephen Harper worked to ensure that the Group of Eight leaders produced a climate change agreement that did not contain overly ambitious goals for cutting greenhouse gases, a senior Canadian government official says. The G8 nations—Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Britain and Russia—overcame their differences to sign an accord here in which they vowed to work to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. While environmentalists derided the agreement as woefully inadequate, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other G8 leaders heralded it as an important breakthrough because it was the first time U.S. President George W. Bush has accepted the need to set targets for cutting carbon emissions.
On Wednesday, after a meeting of the G8 and Hu, Singh and the other emerging economy leaders, a joint agreement was released in which they committed to work toward worldwide greenhouse gas reductions during United Nations-led negotiations over the next 18 months. The leaders agreed that they need to cooperate to develop “a long-term global goal for emission reductions” but the statement does not give any specific targets for emissions cuts. And all indications were that China and India declined, at least for now, to sign on to the G8’s plan to halve emissions by 2050. The statement also stresses that efforts to combat climate change should be undertaken “in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities,” meaning that poorer countries should not be expected to make the same sacrifices as rich nations. This fundamental split between industrialized G8 powers and emerging economies poses a significant hurdle for the next phase of international efforts to confront the climate crisis under UN-led negotiations. The goal, as set at a UN-backed conference in Bali last year, is to reach an agreement by the end of 2009 to replace the emissions-reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, along with U.S. President George W. Bush, insists that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must include developing nations as well as industrialized economies. “We’ve got to have reasonable participation by everybody,” Harper said at a press conference wrapping up the G8 summit. The G8 is committed to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Harper noted. But “by 2050, the developed world will probably represent no more than 20 per cent of emissions. You can’t get a 50 per cent cut from 20 per cent of the emissions. { ??? what is he talking about? It is 50% from Canada’s emissions and this is totally irrelevant from how much this is from the Global total. } “We’ve obviously got to find a reasonable accommodation that respects different economic circumstances,” he said. In the case of some developing nations, it may not be necessary to actually reduce emissions, Harper suggested. Instead, a country might be able to contribute to fighting global warming simply by slowing the rate of growth of emissions. Harper also told the media that rising oil and food prices are a “major concern.” “There are serious risks to (world economic) growth and to the advancement of people in poor countries as a consequence of food price increases.” He said this is why Canada has raised its food aid this year. But “more has to be done to deal with that problem.” In all, the G8 has contributed $10 billion since January to support food aid and at the Japan summit, the G8 agreed to set up a task force to coordinate action to deal with the current food crisis. But anti-poverty groups complained that the G8 made only passing reference to government policies promoting production of biofuels, which some analysts say is the prime cause of runaway food inflation. Harper also said that in the closed-door discussions here, G8 leaders expressed unanimous support for the effort by Canada and other countries to bring stability to Afghanistan in the face of a Taliban insurgency. “Every one of the G8 countries understands that success in Afghanistan is critical and understands that we have serious challenges there,” he said. “There’s not necessarily easy answers,” he added, particularly when it comes to dealing with the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But Canada has lots of support from its allies in this effort, Harper said. Harper also defended the G8, which many observers say has outlived its usefulness during its three decades of annual big power meetings. Harper said the G8 is valuable because it brings together “the major, developed democratic nations of the world.” He said it’s often easier to reach consensus among this like-minded group and that allows member nations to “more forcefully make our position to the wider world.” At the same time, he said it’s important for the G8 to bring other leaders into the annual discussions, as is being done with countries such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. On certain issues, Harper said, “We can’t make the kind of progress we’d like to make unless we have certain major developing countries at the table.” With the G8 wrapping up, Harper was scheduled to fly to Tokyo, where he will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and business leaders. ———– We wish Harper well in his endeavors, but by 2009 seemingly the US, Canada and Japan will be led by a new set of Heads of State, and the change will be for the better we assume. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2008 Global Markets - latest news No formal greenhouse targets at G8 summit. By William L. Watts & Chris Oliver, MarketWatch. a Wall Street Journal Blog. LONDON (MarketWatch) — Leaders of 16 nations at a multilateral gathering in Japan agreed to back a plan for making long-term reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, although the deal fell short of establishing formal reduction targets. “We, the leaders of the world’s major economies, both developed and developing, commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” the nations said Wednesday in a communiqué at the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido. The G8 nations include the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy Canada and Russia. Backers included Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and South Africa, in addition to the G8. But the joint statement didn’t include language from Tuesday’s statement issued by the G8 leaders, in which they said they shared a vision to cut greenhouse emissions in half by 2050. See full story. Only three of the non-G8 countries in attendance — South Korea, Australia and Indonesia — backed the 50% reduction, Reuters reported, and this prevented inclusion of the language in Wednesday’s statement. Leaders of emerging economies have argued that developed countries should first spell out their own goals for emissions reductions. All the same, President Bush hailed the final statement as a sign of “significant progress.” In the end, Wednesday’s statement said the leaders shared a vision for “long-term cooperative action, including a long-term global goal for emission reductions that assures growth, prosperity, and other aspects of sustainable development, including major efforts towards sustainable consumption and production, all aimed at achieving a low-carbon society.” William L. Watts is a reporter for MarketWatch in London. So both gentlemen were not in Hokkaido - their reporting is based on material they read on the web - Did the WSJ really see it like we did - that this G8 exercize, under Japan leadership subservient to the US wishes, will not come up with real and meaningful results? —————— If it was a G8 meeting - why not take as final decision what was decided already on Friday without the participation of the other 8? Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa - the remaining 5 out of the additional 8 - plain and simple said that they do not participate in games when the G8 do not have the stomach for real figures put down in real time. By saying that they want first to see a real offer from the G8, before putting on the record their own participation in emissions reduction, they are actually in full rights and have done nothing worse then pointing flashlights at the meager document of the G8. As we said already in another posting today, it was the Bush, Harper Fukuda position that doomed these 2008 G8 meetings under Japan leadership. President Bush won this battle. Our only remaining question is - why did Fukuda invite the other 8 to participate? Had the G8 met in their own closed cocoon and come up with a final declaration, was that not expected to be better then having a bigger show with folks to be held later as responsible for this failure? What does now Fukuda frame next to his Prime Minister chair in order to say that the meeting he chaired was a success? —————– And the previous article - a day earlier - that was referenced in the July 9, 2008 article - The VISION thing that came to nothing a day later: G8 leaders share ‘vision’ on emission cuts. LONDON (MarketWatch) - Leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations on Tuesday said they shared a “vision” to cut global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050. In a joint statement on the environment and climate change, the G8 leaders said they “seek to share” with all parties involved in U.N.-brokered talks “the vision of … the goal of achieving at least 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognizing that this global challenge can only be met by a global response.” Japan and the European Union are seeking to formalized emission-reduction targets, building on last year’s general agreement among the G-8 nations to “consider seriously” the reductions. The U.S. and several other developed countries { read here Canada and Japan } have said they will not enter an agreement to reduce future greenhouse gas emissions which does not include binding commitments by growing industrial powers such as China and India to cut carbon. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was pleased with progress made toward climate change and other issues following a morning meeting with President Bush. “As always, we’ve had a very interesting exchange of view, very intensive exchange of view, and let me tell you that I’m very satisfied with the work that has gone on, on the G8 documents, as regards progress on the issue of climate change, cooperation in the area of food and oil,” Merkel said at a photo opportunity with Bush. This year’s summit, held at a lakeside resort on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, brought together leaders from 22 nations, including the top G8 officials. { 8+8+5 - the last five are Africans in need and they were not even deemed a reference in the article the following day that speaks of 16 - so, our question is even more to the point - if you had no intention in bringing these other 13 into the decision making process, except for eventually blaming the first 5 from among the second group of 8 for the failure, who needed here also the second group of five that did not even get invited to dinner? All of this is part of our various postings these last few days. We predicted disaster - and here it is starring at us } Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 9th, 2008 Missed Opportunity for G8 Leaders on Climate Change Says Achim Steiner. Nairobi, 9 July 2008 - As the G8 Summit wrapped up in Japan, Achim Steiner, the Executive “We are under pressure to act. We have no time left to waste,” said Mr Steiner. ” However, I Mr Steiner noted that the G8 countries’ agreement to reduce carbon emissions by at least 50 “I think the G8 delivered what it could. But in terms of what the world needs, what the “The G8 Summit has not delivered enough leadership. We have some 500 days until we meet in “We are beyond the rhetoric of climate change. We must now put numbers on the table. We must Mr Steiner noted that a number of countries including Germany, Norway and the UK as well as South Africa and Indonesia are now committing to targets. “But when we look at the implementation of emission reduction targets under the current Kyoto Protocol, a number of industrialized nations are not even delivering on these relatively small targets. So what incentive is there for developing nations to make major investments if developed nations are not willing to take these significant steps forward?” “We will continue to be stuck until all industrialized nations commit to firm targets–ones to ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 6th, 2008 “Avaaz” means “Voice” in many Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European languages. Avaaz.org members to develop campaigns and set the priorities of the organisation. Avaaz also relies on teams of expert advisors to help develop our campaigns, and often Avaaz members volunteer to work with the team on specific projects. We currently have staff based in Rio de Janeiro, Geneva, New York, London, and Washington DC. Our core campaign team members are: Ricken Patel – Co-Founder and Executive Director (Canada) Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and Moveon.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States. The co-founding team was also composed of a group of global social entrepreneurs from 6 countries, including our Executive Director Ricken Patel, Tom Perriello, Tom Pravda, Eli Pariser, Andrea Woodhouse, Jeremy Heimans, and David Madden. Avaaz is lucky to have the founding partnership and support of leading activist organizations from around the world, including the Service Employees International Union, a founding partner of Avaaz, GetUp.org.au, and many others. Permalink | |