In July, the 'Group of 8' nations met in Scotland for the 31st G8 Summit. This year's summit focused on economic development in Africa and global climate change. Both issues require international concern. Sub-Saharan Africa has lost half of its share in world trade between 1980 and 2002. Africa's economy is further strained by a rampant AIDS epidemic. The average life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa has decreased since 1990 to less than 47 years (see Demographics: Life Expectancy on EarthTrends). Climate change has affected agriculture, fisheries, and numerous other industries on a global scale (see the UN's Millennium Assessment report). The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that most of the global warming from the past half century is a direct cause of human activity. The IPCC promotes decreasing emissions through clean energy technology to curb the advance of further climate change (see WRI's feature article Climate Protection in a Disparate World).
The Summit mainly focused on boosting aid to African development, while the issue of climate change remained virtually untouched. On July 8th, the G8 concluded with a declaration to cancel US $40 billion in debt for 18 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. The nations also promise to increase aid from US $25 billion to US $50 billion, and to provide universal access to HIV treatment by 2010. Current antiretroviral treatment rates for advanced HIV cases in Sub-Saharan Africa range from 0 to 8 percent (see AIDS/HIV on EarthTrends). Furthermore, there is a pledge to train 20,000 UN peacekeeping troops for African nations that commit to better governance and democracy. The G8 members from the European Union commit to a collective foreign aid target of 0.56% of GDP by 2010, and 0.7% by 2015. On a later date, the leaders will discuss the need to reduce subsidies and tariffs that inhibit African trade.
Additionally, a joint communique was passed recognizing global warming does exist, but that human activity is only a possible cause. For the July meeting, Tony Blair had intended to set greenhouse gas reduction goals for specific developing countries not included in the Kyoto Protocol (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa) in exchange for clean energy technologies. Unfortunately, the United States held its stance on climate change, prohibiting such goals to pass.
The G8 is an annual meeting of the world's seven leading industrialized nations and Russia. Formed in the early 1970's in response to the oil crisis and global recession, the G8 was originally a meeting of financial officials from the US, Japan and Europe. In 1975, the nations' leaders started attending the meetings, shifting the discussions from the economy and trade to political issues such as global security and global warming. Whoever hosts the summit holds the G8 Presidency, and is thus entitled to select the themes to be discussed at that year's summit. In 2006, the G8 Summit will be hosted by Russia (Source: BBC).
For statistics, maps, articles and other data on climate change and development in Africa visit EarthTrends (http://earthtrends.wri.org). To learn more about Africa's environmental and socio-economic state at the national level please refer to the country profiles section.
