Check Against Delivery
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a
statement on the G8 Summit, which took place under the chairmanship
of Prime Minister Fukuda, between 7 and 9 July in Toyako, Japan
---- a summit that was unique not just for the range of issues
discussed in three interlocking summits - the African outreach, the
G8 plus five and the Major Economies summits - but also for the
large number of countries, 14, whose Presidents or Prime Ministers
took part.
Let me first draw the House’s attention to the
unprecedented G8 statement on Zimbabwe.
Mr Speaker, in the
face of the deepening tragedy in Zimbabwe - the intimidation, the
violation of human rights and the detention of political prisoners
- the G8 made clear that we do not accept the legitimacy of the
Mugabe government and that the UN Secretary General should now
appoint a special envoy both to report on human rights and to
support regional mediation efforts to bring about
change.
The G8 also called
for the immediate resumption of humanitarian operations – essential
to preventing further suffering and loss of life. And we resolved that we would
take further steps to take financial and other measures against
those individuals responsible for the violence.
As the House will
know we have followed this up with a UN Security Council Resolution
now being discussed in New York We propose an international arms
embargo on Zimbabwe including a ban on all supplies of any arms,
weapons, ammunition and military equipment; and we list 14 named
members of the Mugabe inner cabal against whom travel and financial
sanctions should be imposed by the whole international
community.
We have now set in
train work to identify in Africa, Asia, America and Europe -
through a forensic assessment - both physical assets and bank
accounts of these 14 people. The UN resolution also
establishes a committee to monitor these
sanctions.
With worldwide
sanctions and a worldwide arms embargo, our aim is that there be no
hiding place and no safe haven for the criminal cabal that
surrounds Mugabe. And
now that the G8 has taken its decision, we propose that the United
Nations puts the full weight of the international community against
the actions of an illegitimate government.
At the heart of the Summit’s other considerations and
conclusions were the triple shocks hurting the world economy: the
doubling of oil prices, rising food prices and - because of the
credit crunch - the rising cost of money: three shocks that, it is
now agreed, cannot be solved by traditional monetary means alone
but require direct action that will tackle the sources of oil and
food inflation and make for more stable commodity, agricultural and
financial markets.
And the summit also reflected a world that is changing
fast, with a consensus:
·
about the new economic power of Asia;
·
that oil, commodity and food price rises represent global
problems that require global solutions;
·
that there is an economic as well as an environmental
imperative to break our dependence upon oil;
·
and that we should act in Africa and on international
development for moral reasons but also because developing countries
hold the key to addressing our food shortages and will be the ones
most affected by climate change.
First, while as the Summit noted,
there are many explanations for the doubling of oil prices - the
scale of change now greater than the oil shock of the 1970s - the
basic challenge, which cannot be resolved by one country or group
of countries alone, is that now and in the future oil demand
exceeds oil supply.
So while Governments are taking
action domestically - Britain with special winter payments for old
people, new help for low income families and the current freeze in
fuel duty - the G8 agreed that the global conditions for ensuring a
more stable international energy market are:
-
First, expanding nuclear power –
with the International Energy Agency suggesting that we will need a
thousand new nuclear power stations over the next four
decades;
-
Second, accelerating the expansion
of renewables;
-
Third, radical measures to improve
energy efficiency;
-
and fourth, cooperation between
oil producers and oil consumers to ensure greater understanding of
the balance between supply and demand and then new investment in
all sources of energy.
Britain reported that, for our part, we are following up
changes to the North Sea licensing structure with a review of the
current fiscal regime with the aim of increasing recovery from new
and existing oil fields. In addition we will be discussing with the
President of Nigeria next week how the UK can work with the
Nigerian authorities to address security problems in the Nigerian
Delta which are costing 1 million barrels of oil a day. And we are working
with the Iraqi Government to build capacity in the Iraqi oil
sector. We are also discussing with Gulf states and others
how
sovereign wealth funds and oil revenues can be recycled into wider
energy investments.
Mr Speaker, global
action to improve energy efficiency and reduce our dependence on
oil will not only help reduce energy and fuel bills for households
and industry but will also help us fight the battle against climate
change - essential to the future prosperity and security of the
whole world.
For the first time the G8 agreed not just to consider but to adopt
- as part of an international agreement - a long term goal
of a cut of at least 50 per cent in greenhouse gas
emissions by 2050.
For the first time also we all
agreed on the need to have interim goals and national plans to
achieve them.
So I welcome the fact that the Major Economies group – which
includes China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Australia,
Indonesia and South Korea as well as the G8 – agreed to continue to
work together in the UN to achieve an international agreement on
climate change next year; and that the major emerging economies have agreed to adopt
appropriate mitigation actions with a view to reducing their
emissions below business as usual.
As a measure of our shared
commitment to meet these challenging goals, the G8 also agreed to
25 energy efficiency recommendations from the International Energy
Agency, including an agreement that each country will put in place
car and consumer goods standards ---- standards that if implemented
globally could cut global oil consumption by 15 per cent and
energy-related carbon emissions by 20 per cent - equivalent to all
the emissions of the USA and Japan combined.
As I told the Summit these
standards include Britain pressing in the EU for an average fuel
efficiency target of 100 grams of CO2 per kilometre by 2020 -----
and my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is today
publishing a consultation paper in support of this
target. Britain will
also work with countries in the EU and beyond on the scope for
commercialising the production of electric, plug-in and hybrid
vehicles.
To make a reality of - and to
monitor - higher energy efficiency standards, we will also set up a
new G8 Energy Forum which will meet in the autumn and examine how
we can globally adopt new standards and new technologies. This will
feed into the next meeting of the consumer-producers dialogue that,
following its first meeting in Jeddah, we will convene in London
before the end of the year.
And we will seek to make permanent these initiatives by setting up
an International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation as a
high level forum to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and
greater energy efficiency.
We also know that to adopt alternative energy sources Africa and
developing countries must have greater access to funds. So it has
been a British initiative to create what are called the Climate
Investment Funds at the World Bank. We agreed measures at the G8
which will now provide over 0 billion in public and private
finance for alternative energy and other environmental investments:
7 billion through the existing Clean Energy Investment Framework
and billion of new funding through the new Climate Investment
Funds ---- a huge new global investment in tackling climate change
and in alternatives to fossil fuels.
Mr Speaker, with
rising food prices having an impact at home and abroad -
particularly for the poorest - the need for coordinated global
action is clear. So
the G8 agreed to invest over billion to meet not just
short-term humanitarian needs - including increases in food aid -
but to improve food security and agricultural productivity over the
longer term.
One major element in
reducing food prices – as well as generating wider benefits to the
global economy – will be a successful outcome to the Doha trade
round where lowering trade-distorting subsidies and import
restrictions could increase global GDP by as much as 120 billion
euros a year by 2015. The Doha trade round is primarily a
development round which will benefit the poorest countries
most. But if we are
to break the year-long deadlock in negotiations, the upcoming WTO
Ministerial on July 21 will be critical: a make or break meeting
for a trade deal. And
I discussed the importance of this with all participants at the
Summit including President Bush and the Presidents of Brazil and
South Africa and the Prime Minister of India.
We agreed that the
biggest signal we could send that the present challenges must not
be an excuse for a renewed bout of protectionism was signing a
world trade deal. I hope all sections of this House will agree that
all countries should show the resolution to achieve the
breakthrough we want and need. To support the WTO deal, the G8 also
reiterated our commitment to investing billion in ‘Aid for
Trade’ to help poor countries take advantage of the new trading
opportunities.
Mr Speaker, as part
of this year of action on the Millennium Development Goals, the G8
signed up to new action to meet the goals on health - and also
reaffirmed commitments made at Gleneagles to provide
billion in aid to Africa and billion globally, and to establish
universal access to AIDS treatments by 2010. How the world achieves further
major advances in alleviation of poverty, disease and illiteracy is
the subject of the UN Millennium Summit convened by the UN
Secretary General for September 25th. And I call on all countries to
do what is necessary to meet the Millennium Development
Goals.
My aim was to turn
generalized commitments that were not time-specific into concrete
action and delivery to address poverty, disease and illiteracy. We
agreed that over the next five years we would deliver the
commitment made at Heiligendamm of billion to tackle infectious
diseases and to strengthen health in Africa. And some other countries will
provide additional resources for health systems.
We also agreed to
help fund, in 36 African countries, the WHO target of 2.3 health
workers per one thousand people – in total, an additional 1.5
million new doctors, nurses and health workers, including a
substantial increase in the number of skilled midwives so that
women no longer have to die unaided in child
birth.
The G8 also committed
to finance, by 2010, 100 million bednets for the prevention of
malaria which could save 600,000 lives.
And billion of new
funding for the education Fast Track Initiative will immediately
help a further 10 million children go to school.
During the Summit, I
had a number of key bilateral meetings with other leaders,
including the new President of Russia where we agreed on
coordinated international action on Iran, and the Middle East Peace
Process. I raised all
the major issues between our two countries – our position on the
Litvinenko case, the treatment of the British Council and the
withdrawal of visas for BP employees.
Mr Speaker, the G8
agreed that in a world of global financial flows it is essential
that immediate action to tackle the impact of financial instability
at home is accompanied by clearer standards for valuation, changes
in the role and use of credit ratings, better management of
liquidity, and - more generally - concerted global action to reform
the IMF. There was agreement that the IMF should become a better
early warning system for the world economy and that the
international institutions set up in the 1940s were in need of
fundamental reform to ensure they are fit to meet the challenges of
the 21st century. Further work will be done
over the coming year to produce proposals for their reform and
renewal.
Mr Speaker, just as
on Zimbabwe where we have seen the growth of an international
coalition for change, there is a growing agreement on the need for
detailed collaborative actions on energy, climate change, trade and
international development. And I commend this statement to the
House.
Ends
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