Why should you care about the G8?

The G8 countries have an enormous share of the world's wealth, which has given them alot of power. This short Flash animation introduces a few ways in which the G8 countries have misused their power.

(download Flash player)

Reproduction of text from the animation

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Why should you care about the G8?

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The G8 is the global elite. G8 countries have huge amounts of money and power.

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In fact they have 65% of the world's wealth and only 14% of the population.

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The G8 countries have used their power to look after the interests of corporations, instead of citizens and the environment. Three areas where they have favoured profits over people include:

• The Environment
• Debt Relief
• Trade Issues

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The Environment:
All but one of the G8 countries has promised the Kyoto Protocol and fight climate change. The US, under George Bush and Exxon, is alone in refusing to fight climate change. But Canada could be following along. It once promised to ratify by the G8 Summit in June 2002, but has long since backed off on that commitment.

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Debt Relief:
The G8 countries promised to cancel the debt of many impoverished countries at a meeting in 1999. $100 billion in debt was to be cancelled, representing a small portion of the debt load carried by many countries in the South. By 2002 however, the G8 countries had delivered only three cents on the dollar of its commitment, meaning the South's debtload continues to spiral upward.

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Trade Issues
The G8 countries continue to listen to mulitnational corporations when designing trade policies and ignore the interests of the citizens of the world.

What is the G8?

The G8 (Group of 8) are eight of the most economically and politically powerful countries: the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, France and Russia. The European Union also participates in G8 meetings.

The group has met annually since 1975 when the world’s six largest economies met in France to discuss the economic crisis created by the United States’s abandonment of the gold standard.

Today the G8 is one of the most powerful bodies in the world. While the organization claims to be in informal discussion forum, the G8 largely sets the agenda for all of the major international institutions including the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It’s no coincidence that the G8 meets every summer just in advance of the September meetings of the World Bank/IMF and the November Ministerial of the WTO.

Nothing happens on the international stage without direction from the G8. From debt relief, to nuclear proliferation, to global forestry policy, to global action on climate change, the G8 is involved. However, it is not social and environmental well-being that motivates the G8. Time and time again, the G8 has clearly demonstrated its primary commitment is to creating a global environment in which corporations can easily pursue profits free from obstacles such as environmental regulations, labour standards and taxes.
Updates

Updates:

G8 Foreign Ministers’ meeting - day one - posted Thursday June 13, 2002.

G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting - final day - posted Friday June 14, 2002.

(Watch here for updates from the G8 Summit in Kananaskis, June 26-27)

The G8 Record

I ) On the Environment

While the G8 claims that the environment and sustainable development are important issues, the organization consistently fails to put its money where its mouth is.

Consider the G8’s position on climate change. The G8 recognizes that climate change is a global problem. The body has even recognized that renewable energy has important potential in addressing this global crisis and went so far as to appoint a Task Force to study renewable energy. However, when the Task Force came back with recommendations that the G8 take real action which would lead to a significant uptake of renewables in both the North and the South, the G8 shelved the report.

From illegal logging to protection of endangered species, the G8 often says it is concerned, but rarely acts on its concern by committing real resources and establishing real timelines to combat the problems. Where the interests of big corporations are at odds with the environment, the environment always loses out.

2) On Trade

The G8 advocates that “open trade and investment drive global growth and poverty reduction.” Based on this belief, the G8 has expressed its determination: “we must renew our unwavering commitment to structural change…including greater competition and more adaptable labour markets” (Okinawa Summit Communique).

Over and over again, the G8 insists that the free market is the key to social and environmental well-being throughout the world. Whether its energy security or poverty eradication or combating climate change or fighting HIV/AIDS, the G8 advocates that competitive markets and liberalized trade are pivotal to solving these crises. However, the promises of neoliberal globalization have failed to pan out.

On the contrary, we have seen the gap between the rich and the poor grow. Where energy and water have been privatized, these basic goods have become unreliable and inaccessible to low income people. Where caring for the environment has been left unregulated, pollution has increased and environmental disasters have grown. The list goes on and on. But this is hardly surprizing. The players in the free market system are motivated by profit; they are not motivated by desire to protect the environment or commitment to public health or concern regarding the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

To be sure, there already are some very important global rules which, if followed, could go a long way to ensuring that human and environmental well-being are put before corporate profit. Such global rules include environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and human rights agreements such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
However, despite calls from citizens around the world, the G8 has failed to take any action that would make trade rules subservient to environmental and human rights agreements. It’s time for the G8 to listen to citizens instead of big corporations.

3. On debt

At the 1999 Summit in Cologne, $100 billion of debt cancellation was offered. However, to date, only $2.6 billion has been cancelled. Given the devastating impacts of poverty world-wide, it’s hard to see what the G8 is waiting for.

The G8 supports the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). The HIPC has come under sharp criticism because it offers inadequate amounts of cancellation to only a handful of the countries requiring debt relief. The Jubilee movement in the South argues that full debt relief should be provided to all of those countries who need it. If such a debt cancellation policy was adopted, most impoverished countries would have all of their so-called debt forgiven.

What is at stake in Kananaskis?

The Kananaskis Agenda

The G8 Summit will bring together leaders from Canada, the United States, France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Germany, Japan and representatives of the European Union to discuss issues of great importance to people around the world. However, the discussion will not be directed by the interests of citizens, but rather the financial interests of corporations. Essentially, the G8 is getting together in Kananaskis to figure out how they can best extend and deepen their ‘neoliberal agenda’.

This ‘neoliberal agenda’ insists a free market will lead to a just and healthy world – eventually. In pursuit of this agenda, the proponents of ‘neoliberalism’ do all they can to remove obstacles to corporations’ drive to make profit – obstacles such as environmental regulations, labour standards, unions and taxes. The growing gap between the rich and the poor and the dire state of the environment are only two of the most obvious indicators that the neoliberal agenda is bad for people and the planet. Still, the G8 leaders are relentless.

There are three specific topics which the leaders will be discussing in Kananaskis:

• the global economy,
• Africa’s ‘development’ and
• terrorism.
  

Like most big international meetings, the G8 Summit is important because it marks another blow against the well-being of the planet and people. For instance, at the Kananaskis Summit we are likely to see Canada continue to kowtow to the U.S. and continue to back away from its promise to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – the only international tool we have for fighting global climate change. We are likely to see the G8 continue to refuse to offer real money within a real time frame to spark the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. And of course, as the G8 leaders talk about fighting terrorists, in all likelihood, they will ignore the reality that climate change poses a great and imminent danger to human security. In terms of African ‘development’, we are likely to see the G8 announce plans to impose its neoliberal agenda on the continent.

On this website, you will find audio interviews with activists from around the world who are concerned about the Kananaskis Summit – from Patrick Bond in South Africa to Maude Barlow in Canada.

Updates

G8 Foreign Ministers’ meeting - day one - posted Thursday June 13, 2002.

G8 Foreign Ministers' meeting - final day - posted Friday June 14, 2002.

Watch here for updates from the G8 Summit in Kananaskis, June 26-27

Take Action on Kyoto

Send a Message to the Federal Government

Use the text below to send a special e-mail message to Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

(Select text below, press CTRL + C to copy text, CTRL + V to paste text into body of email)

Dear Prime Minister Chrétien,

I urgently write to urge your government to take its climate change policy seriously and live up to the commitments you gave Canadians and the world.

A decade ago, Canada promised to fight climate change. Five years ago, your party ran on a platform to fight climate change - the same year you signed the Kyoto Protocol. Last November, your government committed to ratify this crucial treaty after years of undermining it on the international stage.

But today, Environment Minister David Anderson says the decision on ratification is not made, despite recently saying he believed ratification by June was possible. Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal’s comments are inconsistent and often contradictory. The doubt surrounding Canada’s ratification of Kyoto gives hope to polluters and it is imperative your government have one, clear position: Ratification of Kyoto by June, as promised.

Canada’s climate is changing. Your government says so and the experiences of Canadians - through heat, drought, ice storms and forest fires - agree. The world is acting, by investing in renewable energy and ratifying Kyoto. If California can act to reduce emissions without George W. Bush, then so can Canada.

I urge you to honour your obligations and keep the promise you made last July, and ratify Kyoto by June. Canada cannot host the G-8 summit this year without ratifying Kyoto, particularly since the European members of the G-8 will arrive after having kept their promise to act on climate change.

Mr. Chrétien, the time to act is now and the time to ratify is June. Canadians will be watching.

Source of above text from the Greenpeace site at http://www.greenpeace.ca/g8/

It has been reproduced here because the Greenpeace site uses technology that renders the site inaccessible to blind individuals using screen readers.

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This page was last updated June 18, 2002