On Climate Change, Commitment to Debt, and on to Kirchentag
Careening along on the train from Rostock where I’ve been for the past week on my way to Cologne for the Kirchentag, I’d thought I put down some closing thoughts on the G8 and the movements here that have been challenging them.
On the penultimate day of the G8 Summit, with world leaders having progressed few decisions on the fate of Africa and the world’s poor, Oxfam’s ‘Big Heads’ have been cavorting away their time in Germany on the beach outside the G8 Summit highlighting this potentially wasted opportunity. Photo: Oxfam.
First, maybe most inspiring has been the creativity and dynamism of the organizations and movements here. From the clown brigades to the thousands of dedicated young people working for a better world in camps all around the summit, the colors and actions were impressive. After a very bad start on the weekend with violence, protestors have been overwhelmingly nonviolent but very effective in civil disobedience actions to challenge the G8 over the past week.
Thousands of anti-G8 protesters march through crop fields towards the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm June 6, 2007. Leaders from the world's major industrialised nations meet in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6-8 for a Group of Eight (G8) summit. Photo: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay (GERMANY)
And they’ve been really creative. Yesterday, I heard about a group of bikers who rode en masse – 1,000 of them along some of the roads that go to the G8 Summit. They rode very slowly, and every few minutes, they’d stop, get off their bikes, and do repairs and maintenance. The effect: very slow traffic of people making their way to the G-8 and an effectively blocked road to the summit.
Tuesday's campaign stunt by Oxfam, the day before the G8 leaders arrive in Rostock for 2007's G8 Summit, features the infamous 'Big Heads' dressed as Pinnochio - the puppet figure whose nose grew every time he told a lie. Photo: Craig Owen/Oxfam
The bigger, media savvy NGOs like Oxfam, MSF, and Greenpeace had their fun too. Oxfam was all over the place with their huge G-8 heads. My favorite was when they added long Pinocchio-noses to each G-8 leader to symbolize their broken promises on aid to Africa and HIV/AIDS. Greenpeace had four boaters out in the waters off the summit shoreline which led to a dramatic water-based cat and mouse style chase for the better part of an hour. Tragically, police boats ran over one of the Greenpeace boats in the midst of the chase and some were seriously injured.
I spent most of Tuesday through Thursday shuttling back and forth between Rostock, site of the alternative summit, and Kühlungsborn, the official G-8 media center where international press covering the summit were based. I received NGO press accreditation thanks to our friends ar erlassjahr.de. We coordinated as more than a dozen debt campaigns from across the globe to put out a press release highlighting the unfinished business of the G8 Summit on international debt on each day of the summit.
On Wednesday, we put out a release about the G8’s failure to defend its own debt cancellation initiative from vulture funds. I learned earlier this week that the Bush administration had actually fought proposals from the U.K. and Germans to address vulture funds ahead of the G8 Finance Ministers meeting a few weeks ago in Potsdam.
The Bush administration’s argument? We might dissuade or worry financial markets if we do any kind of regulation.
But were financial markets meant to be this cruel? Is it right for countries to create safehavens that enable ‘vulture’ investors to buy up debts, sue for them, and take millions away from desperately poor countries?
On Thursday, we focused on Liberia. Now eligible for debt cancellation in principle, Liberia STILL has not seen its arrears cleared and debts cancelled. The reason for this dates back to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The G8 promised to help Liberia when it became eligible, but it didn’t provide the money.
The result? Liberia is still sending $100,000 a month to international financial institutions.
Overall, it is clear that G8 are suffering a severe case of lack-of-follow-through (or amnesia) on debt. They announce a huge debt deal two years ago to great fanfare, applause, and media attention. Then two years later, nothing?
In addition to the focus on vulture funds and Liberia, we also put out statements on the need for immediate debt cancellation for Haiti and climate debt.
The big issue on the agenda here has been climate change. Up until now, the Bush administration has been the biggest roadblock to further progress on this issue. A few weeks ago, some environmental groups got a leaked copy of the section of the draft G8 Communique that deals with climate, and the U.S. delegation had crossed out all text on about 14 of 17 pages!
Photo: Danny Rimpl
Yesterday, it was exciting to be in the international media center when German Chancellor Merkel announced that an agreement had been reached among the G8 on climate. All countries – including the U.S. for the first time – agreed that solutions should come through the UN climate process (rather than a whole separate US-led process that president Bush suggested last week) and that the next round of climate negotiations will end by 2009. There was also language on a general agreement to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2050 but not concrete commitments on this. A step forward on a longroad ahead! Download the G8 Summit Declaration: Growth and Responsibility in the World Economy.
Just as this announcement was being made, I got word from Karen in the Jubilee office that Reps. Waters and Bachus had dropped the Jubilee Act in Congress! We worked up a press release: “As G8 Fails to Address the Unfinished Agenda on Debt, U.S. Congress Introduces Legislation That Will” I distributed it around the media center, though as the news came just after the climate breakthrough, it was bad timing…
We’re waiting to see the final communiqué on Africa to see if anything positive at all came out re. debt and vulture funds, but all signs are down for now. All the more important to focus our efforts on U.S. Congress to build overwhelming support so that it will become law.
Now off to the Kirchentag, a massive religious festival in Colgone, to meet up with Bill Harman (Jubilee San Diego) who has long been involved with this network, as well as friends from erlasjahr.de who are organizing events there!
More on Monday! - Neil
Good cause--but do not miss out in exploring the wonderful city of Cologne and, if you get time, its surrounding--Bonn, Godesberg, Duesseldorf, and much more!
Posted by: Brigitte N. | 12 June 2007 at 07:57 PM
Good cause--but do not miss out in exploring the wonderful city of Cologne and, if you get time, its surrounding--Bonn, Godesberg, Duesseldorf, and much more!
Posted by: Brigitte N. | 12 June 2007 at 07:57 PM