CNSNews.com - At G8 Summit, Obama Backs Broad Commitments That Are Short on Specifics

CNSNews.com - At G8 Summit, Obama Backs Broad Commitments That Are Short on Specifics

(CNSNews.com) – As the Group of Eight (G8) summit closed on Friday, it became clear that President Barack Obama had followed the tradition of joining sweeping commitments to developing nations that promise grand initiatives but leave many details blank.

The tradition of G8 leaders issuing broad declarations on global issues such as poverty, debt, and AIDS precedes Obama. However, this year the president made one such declaration personal, saying that he pushed for a $20-billion commitment to fighting hunger in Africa because his Kenyan relatives lived in poor villages.



“[M]y father traveled to the United States a mere 50 years ago, and yet now I have family members who live in villages – they themselves are not going hungry, but live in villages where hunger is real. And so this is something that I understand in very personal terms,” the president told reporters in L’Aquila, Italy, where this year’s G8 summit was held.

Obama personally pushed for a greater food security commitment, pressing leaders of the world’s eight most developed states to increase their pledge from a proposed $15 billion to $20 billion.

“[W]hen my father traveled to the United States from Kenya to study, at that time, the per capita income and gross domestic product of Kenya was higher than South Korea's.” Obama said. “Today, obviously, South Korea is a highly developed and relatively wealthy country, and Kenya's still struggling with deep poverty in much of the country.”

Obama said the money was needed to transform African governments into success stories like South Korea, which he credited as being responsible for the latter country’s success.

“[T]he point I've made was that the South Korean government, working with the private sector and civil society, was able to create a set of institutions that provided transparency and accountability, and efficiency that allowed for extraordinary economic progress, and that there was no reason why African countries could not do the same,” Obama said.

Obama also joined G8 leaders in making promises on climate change, including the seemingly impossible goal of controlling global temperatures. The G8 “declaration” committed member countries to taking undefined “steps” to keep global temperature-rise to within two degrees Celsius.

“We recognize the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees C,” the declaration said.

It continued: “In this regard and in the context of the ultimate objective of the Convention and the Bali Action Plan, we will work between now and Copenhagen, with each other and under the Convention, to identify a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050.”

The G8 leaders, including Obama, committed their countries to “robust” reductions in greenhouse gases, although Congress has yet to pass cap-and-trade legislation and has rejected past international efforts to curb global warming.

“Developed countries among us will take the lead by promptly undertaking robust aggregate and individual reductions in the midterm consistent with our respective ambitious long-term objectives.”

Obama also committed the United States to helping developing countries with the potential effects of global warming by giving them an undetermined amount of money and the most advanced – and expensive – technologies.

“We will work together to develop, disseminate, and transfer, as appropriate, technologies that advance adaptation efforts,” the G8 declaration said, adding, “Financial resources for mitigation and adaptation will need to be scaled up urgently and substantially, and should involve mobilizing resources to support developing countries.”

One commitment in the G8 climate declaration pledges that developed countries will go to nearly any length to give their best technologies to poor countries.

“[W]e undertake to remove barriers, establish incentives, enhance capacity-building, and implement appropriate measures to aggressively accelerate deployment and transfer of key existing and new low-carbon technologies,” states the declaration.

The climate declaration commits countries to provide not only public funding, but also private funding, as well as money from “carbon markets,” which do not exist in the United States.

“Financing to address climate change will derive from multiple sources, including both public and private funds and carbon markets,” says the G8 declaration.