It’s regrettable! The climate mess in 2010 – G8 – G20
The (MDGs) Millennium Development Goals as the CO2 rises…
Where did the G8 and G20, and the first use of the term “Terrorism”, come from?
Large summits are nothing new. The 36th G8 summit set up shop in Huntsville June 25-26. Toronto, a past host, welcomed the 4th G20 summit June 26-27.
G7 leaders in Halifax in 1995 were given the tall task at the Naples Summit the previous year to “assure that the global economy of the 21st century will provide sustainable development with good prosperity and well-being of the peoples of our nations and the framework of institutions required to meet these challenges.”
According to the Canadian government, the Halifax Summit would “set the standard for more results-oriented, informal and business like summits.” The summit was labeled the Chevrolet Summit, for its supposed scaled-down style.
While the cost of security of this summit was a mere $25 million (compared to over $1 billion for security at this year’s in Toronto), leaders put terrorism on the agenda for the first time. The estimated ratio of delegates to security personnel was 2:1.
Like the 2010 G8/G20 summits, 1988′s G7 meeting was hosted in downtown Toronto at the Metro Convention Centre. It was also a year Canada played host to the Olympic Winter Games, held in Calgary.
In the lead-up the 1988 summit, as much media attention was paid to Ronald Reagan’s farewell to the G7 as to international fiscal policy—the summit’s official focus. Summit delegates also discussed supposed concern over continued repression in apartheid South Africa, and committed to reduce the debt of the world’s poorest countries by one-third.
Despite these pressing problems, some pundits believed no action was necessary on the part of the G7. “I don’t see they have anything to do other than congratulate each other on how well things are going,” wrote one economic analyst in the New York Times
Protesters who disagreed faced a four-meter-high steel and concrete fence surrounding the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, military helicopters hovering overhead and sharpshooters on Toronto’s rooftops. Total security costs for the summit were $29.3 million.
The newly-created World Trade Organization was featured prominently in the summit’s final declarations, and leaders pledged to support its development.
“In October 2008, in the aftermath of the financial crisis that began in the United States in September, President George W. Bush announced that he would host a meeting of the leaders of the G20 countries — creating the first ever G20 summit — in Washington DC on November 14-15, 2008, to coordinate the global response. At that meeting, the leaders agreed to meet again. Thus British prime minister Gordon Brown agreed to host the second G20 summit in London on April 1-2, 2009.”1
In the lead-up to this summit, Canadian NGOs, labour unions and faith-based groups joined forces to create the Halifax Initiative, an organization that today provides an analysis of G8 summits and issues, and calls for reform to international financial institutions (IFIs). The Halifax Initiative was formed against the backdrop of widespread criticism for the lavish 50th Anniversary meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
“[The people] wanted major changes and there were signs the Halifax summit would respond to those calls,” said Fraser Reilly-King of the Halifax Initiative. “As a result, Canadian NGOs formed the Halifax Initiative in December 1994 to ensure that demands for fundamental reform of the IFIs were high on the agenda of the Group of Seven’s Halifax Summit.”
The Halifax People’s Summit (P7) was a gathering of NGOs, labour unions and activist groups from Canada and around the world. Sponsored by 50 NGOs and coordinated by hundreds of volunteers, the P7 included talks by Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki, Maude Barlow and Ed Broadbent, and a host of organizations from South Africa, Latin America and Turtle Island’s First Nations.
The attempts made to freshen up the G7 with a new format don’t appear to have changed its end results.
I Think It's Spam
“Thankfully it [the G8/G20] G20 Information Centre looks to finally be going the way of the dinosaurs,” said Reilly-King. “But regrettably, today’s responses [to global economic problems] by the G20 are remarkably similar to proposals issued 15 years ago at the Halifax Summit.” – the above extracts are from The Dominion’s special issue on the G8 and G20 by Amanda Wilson a researcher and writer based in Ottawa.
So What is Important Now!
What comes next is from Progressive Perspectives on International development and financial issues ( home page ) called “This is Definitely Not The G8″
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The (MDGs) Millennium Development Goals…
The Real Protest
Clean free and possibly grid less energy. Facilities world wide capable of producing it already exist. Trillions of dollars saved by adopting new technology used to fund world wide water conservation and assist native communities develop healthy self determinism.
“One can dream!”
After a decade of development, with many setbacks and oppositions, the development of the Lutec Self Sustaining Generator is ready to immediately answer the World Community need for clean economical power for the coming centuries. http://www.lutec.com.au/ What’s more economical than not coming with a fueling cost.
Manufacturers from all over the world are invited to express interest in license purchase of the Lutec Generator now distributed as EEA (Evergreen Electricity Amplifier) by www.evergreenltd.com.hk.
Currently patented across Africa and in fourteen other nations with pending approval in another seven nations www.evergreenltd.com.hk/patents.htm
Scaleable for home and small commercial installations as well as large utility size distribution nodes. Energy produced at no cost to the users or the environment, and for those that buy their own units, free electric power for the life of the unit.
Image Projection of the One Megawatt Mini Power Station
- G20 Information Centre, Munk School of Global Affairs, The University of Toronto ↩
Loading ...
Secured by