G-8 SUMMIT 2009

BY VINOD ERAT

G-8 Summits provide global leaders an opportunity to review economic and political along with socio-cultural conditions prevailing across the world.This year the 35th G-8 Summit was held at L'Aquila, Italy from 8th to 10th July.Apart from the existing members of G-8, leaders of the five Emerging Economies of the world namely India, China,Brazil, Mexico and South Africa also attended the Summit and it came to be known as G8+5 Summit.

The main agenda of the Summit included Climate change,global financial crisis,Energy security and nuclear energy,millennium development goals,poverty in Africa,Intellectual property rights among others.The main decisions taken by the leaders are as follows

• Industrial nations to avoid protectionism and ensure credit flows
• Joint commitment to provide resources to international financial institutions
• Call for a balanced conclusion to the Doha round of talks
• Participants to refrain from introducing any barriers to trade and investment
• WTO and other international agencies to monitor financial stability and the situation and report publicly on quarterly basis
• Commitment towards clean energy technology and reduction of Green House gas emissions
• Bridge the gap before the next G20 summit
• Next climate change summit in Copenhagen

The contentious issues at the summit were

• Reduction of emission of GHGs
• Funding and technology transfer for clean energy technology.The developed nations want IP protected clean energy technology to be transferred to developing nations at minimum or no license fee.
• Agriculture and Non Agriculture Market Access.