The bottom line on the G8 (plus 5) forum

Since 1975 leaders of northern rich democracies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have met annually to thrash out agreements on the big economic issues of the day. Last week,Berlusconihosted this club plus the 'Outreach 5' (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa) in L'Aquila to address the topic of food security, climate change, trade, aid, oil and economic woes.

For those interested in global agreements on climate change, this was a very important event. The positive or negative tone set here is thought to determine the prospects of success in November in Copenhagen (where the successor to the Kyoto Protocol will be sought). So how did it all go?

Setting the agenda

There are at least three ways in which this week's summit was a success. Firstly, it was significant that climate change made the agenda and was framed in a responsible economic manner. The failed Kyoto agreement was a product of framing carbon reductions as relatively cheap and therefore ignored the tough economic decisions that accompany any substantive carbon reduction.

Secondly, the inclusion of developing countries framed the climate agenda in a way that reflected reality. Rather than taking the easy and politically cheap path of agreeing to carbon agreements among only developed countries, the G8 this year accepted a much more difficult task of staking out a real debate about global solutions. In the Kyoto agreement, negotiators from developed countries could agree to almost anything knowing that it would be an impossible sell domestically without developing country support.

Thirdly, despite the difficult task, both developed and developing countries were able to agree that global warming should be contained within 2 degrees of pre-industrial temperatures. Although this is far removed from actual agreements on carbon emissions it is an absolutely critical starting point. As I explained in a previous blog, understanding the links between environmental and economic damage, global average temperature, atmospheric carbon concentrations, and carbon emissions is necessary for any meaningful carbon-reduction roadmap. This also allows meaningful cost-benefit analysies of options to be undertaken in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

Unwarranted distractions

However, these successes certainly fell far short of many expectations. Most notably was the lack of concrete agreements on carbon emissions amongst both developed and developing countries. The rich countries pushed for a global goal of halving world emissions by 2050 (an ambitious aspiration) but failed to persuade developing countries to join.

This failure reflected the reluctance of developed countries to live up to the economic and ethical consequences of hundreds of years of carbon-intensive development. Rich countries stress the global nature of climate change but developed countries stress that developed countries account for most of the carbon that exists in the atmosphere today. To resolve this tension, carbon commitments will need to accompany large side payments to developing countries. Rich countries have not confronted this fact and these talks reflected this.

This said, G8 talks have generally not been a forum for concrete agreements. Therefore, an agreement of warming limits may be all that could be expected. The disagreements may also highlight the conflicts that need to be resolved in the lead-up to Copenhagen. If developed and developing countries take these lessons to their domestic debate, much learning can occur.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official reflected this mixture of success and failure well. He explained, "Generally this is careful but useful step forward toward Copenhagen" but that "this hasn't given me a huge rush of adrenalin".

The more worrying problem to emerge from the forum comes from the signs of political distraction. Chinese leaders were forced to return to China early to deal with the conflicts in Xinjiang,Berlusconiseemed more keen on using the forum to distract from his domestic troubles than making real climate change progress, and almost all leaders felt that economic woes must take first priority.

These are unnecessary distractions with disastorous potential consequences. We have already begun to see that the economic crisis has been a hindrance rather than benefit to the environmental agenda ('green' stimulus spending has been a huge disappointment). If petty political and domestic squabbles take priority over climate change, Copenhagen will fail. Enormous political capital will be needed in Copenhagen and last week's G8 showed that there were no countries prepared to spend even a penny of it on the topic.