11 June 07
The Prime Minister has hailed the G8 summit in Germany as a success and a valuable renewal of pledges on climate change and Africa.
Parts of this transcript may have been edited
Read the statement
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the G8 Summit, which took place between 6 and 8 June in Heiligendamm in Germany.
I pay tribute to Chancellor Merkel’s outstanding chairmanship.
The purpose of the Summit was to take forward the agenda first established at the Gleneagles Summit of 2005, on climate change and Africa.
On climate change, the scale of the challenge, environmentally and politically has been becoming clearer month by month. There is now a scientific consensus that the planet is warming dangerously. If we do not halt and then reverse the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, we face a potential catastrophe. Sir Nicholas Stern’s report has shown that early action will save money; late action will cost it. So, for the environment, this is urgent.
Politically, the problem has been clear but daunting. The United States was not part of the Kyoto Treaty. The major emitters in the years to come will include China and India and developing nations. They want to grow their economies. They fear that action on climate change will limit their growth and hence keep their people - hundreds of millions of them - poor.
Added to all of this, Kyoto barely stabilizes emissions. It is now obvious we need substantially to cut them. And it expires in 2012.
At Gleneagles we set up the G8+5 dialogue, the first time the US and China sat round the same table debating how to put a new deal together.
There is still a long way to go but for the first time an outline agreement can now be seen that meets the environmental test of cutting substantially the harmful emissions and the political test of bringing developed and developing nations, notably America and China, together.
We agreed at the G8, for the first time, that a new global climate change agreement should succeed the current Kyoto Treaty.
We agreed, for the first time, that at the heart of that agreement should be a substantial cut in global emissions. And the Summit sent an important signal that the global target should be of the order of a cut of at least 50% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the target set by the EU, Japan and Canada.
We agreed at the G8, for the first time, the process for such a new agreement. We agreed that the UN is the only body able to finalise a global deal on climate change and that a comprehensive agreement should be reached in 2009. We called on all countries to see the UN climate change meeting in December as a first step to achieving a comprehensive climate change agreement.
The most important change was in relation to the position of the United States of America. Again, for the first time, President Bush signalled that he wanted the US to be part of the new global agreement, and would lead the attempt to get consensus amongst all the main countries, including China and India, so that this consensus could shape the final global deal.
This is crucial. There will be no effective climate change accord without the US. The US will not agree without China being part of it. Now we have an agreement in principle, a goal and a process to achieve it. Much remains to be done. But on any basis, this is a substantial step forward.
We agreed that tackling climate change and addressing energy security, are complementary goals. We highlighted the importance of tackling energy efficiency; of addressing emissions caused by deforestation; and of helping developing countries, who are likely to be worst hit by climate change, adapt to its impacts. We agreed on a renewed effort to develop and deploy new low-carbon technologies. And we have sent a strong message that emissions trading schemes, both within and between countries, will play a key role in giving incentives to business to invest in low-carbon technologies.
Heiligendamm was never going to be about finalising a deal. It was about sending a clear signal on the shape of the post-2012 climate change framework. That is exactly what it did. The UK will work hard in the G8, UN and elsewhere to deliver this objective of such fundamental importance to the future of the world.
Two years ago, the Gleneagles G8 agreed a global increase in aid and debt relief of $50bn by 2010 with $25bn extra for Africa. It also agreed universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment by 2010; to tackling other killer diseases; a commitment to funding primary education; to supporting an African peacekeeping Force; and to a big debt write-off.
Britain is already meeting its commitment to increase aid to Africa. We have trebled it. Before the Summit Germany announced an extra 3bn euros over 4 years; and America an extra $15bn for treating HIV/AIDS over 5 years. Overall aid has risen. We should not ignore what already has been done or the almost $40bn of additional debt relief for Africa since 2005.
But we will need to do substantially more to ensure the Gleneagles provisions are kept.
However, on HIV/AIDs, the G8 reiterated its commitment to delivering universal access to HIV/AIDS, treatment by 2010. Since Gleneagles around 1 million people in Africa are receiving the anti-retroviral drugs they need. Now the G8 have agreed to fund a total of 5 million. This is more than the G8 share of this commitment as predictions currently stand. But we can do more in years to come to fulfill the 2010 goal, if the need rises. We committed to providing $60 billion over the next few years in Africa to help achieve this. We committed to filling the estimated $6 to $8 billion shortfall in funding for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, and, reflecting UK policy, committed to providing the long-term predictable funding necessary to achieve the Fund’s goals.
The G8 also committed to taking specific steps to tackle the alarming feminisation of the AIDS epidemic - where in sub-Saharan Africa 60% of adults living with HIV/AIDS are women, and where 3 out of 4 young people living with HIV are women and girls. So the G8 committed to scaling up its efforts to deliver universal access to services to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to their children; to paediatric services; and to maternal and child health services, at a total cost of nearly $5 billion.
On education, the G8 committed to working to meet the immediate $500 million financing gap for the Education fast track initiative. Again in line with broader UK policy, the G8 committed to help provide long-term predictable funding to ensure that every child gets to school - and reiterated its commitment to ensure that no country seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted in achieving its goal by a lack of resources. This will help meet the MDG of universal primary education by 2015.
The G8 also committed to identifying, agreeing and supporting lasting solutions to the financing of peacekeeping missions in Africa - essential if key missions such as the African Union mission in Darfur are not to limp on hand to mouth, month after month.
We agreed a strong statement on the crisis in Darfur. The truth is that President Bashir of Sudan has consistently refused to admit a hybrid UN-AU force, and that he has consistently only moved under the threat of pressure from outside.
Unless he now agrees to the G8 and UN demands, we are now committed, to a new and tougher package of sanctions through the Security Council to force him to do so.
Our last session was dominated by discussion of the World Trade talks. The gap has now narrowed. There is the real possibility of agreeing an outline deal by the end of June. The outstanding elements amount to only a few percentage points either way. We are therefore closer to the headline numbers than ever before. But, we have to move from wanting to do the deal to doing it. The meeting at G4 between 19-23 June will be absolutely crucial. Britain will continue to do all we can - and we have done much over these past months - to bridge the gap. The benefits of an agreement for the wealthy nations as well as the developing, are enormous. It would be good for business and jobs. Good for the multilateral system. Good for the world’s poorest. I urge the US, the EU, the G20: get this done. It will be great to succeed; a profound shame to fail.
As is usual at G8 Summits, I also had bilateral meetings with a number of leaders, in particular a long and frank meeting with President Putin, covering the range of issues presently under discussion - the Litvinenko case, Kosovo, Ballistic Missile Defence, energy policy. I set out our view that people were becoming worried and fearful about the implications of present Russian policy. The President set out with equal frankness his views.
It was right to have such an exchange. The issues were aired with complete openness on both sides. I said to him we wanted a good relationship with Russia. He affirmed his desire to see Russia/UK relations strong. But the truth is these issues remain unresolved.
So, Mr Speaker, this was a Summit that made a real breakthrough on climate change, some more progress on Africa and showed once again the value to Britain of its transatlantic and European alliances. I commend the outcome to the House.
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