HOKKAIDO-JAPAN: Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized countries, a.k.a G8, have pledged six billion dollars for official development financing at the summit in Hokkaido, Japan, on Tuesday, July 8, 2008.
 

The leaders of the United States, Germany, Japan, UK, Russia, Italy, France and Canada concluded a three-day summit on Wednesday. Other leaders from Africa, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, also attended the meeting on invitation.
 

The crux of this year’s discussions by the leaders focused on world economy, and development in Africa.
 

The Summit was held in Windsor Hotel, in the northern Japanese province of Hokkaido. Its town, Saporo, which buzzed with guests from all over the world, has 25 hotels, with a total of 1,369 beds. For the delegates, environment and climate change were the main focus of the discussions.

The funds the G8 pledged last week go to the Climate Investment Fund (CIF), a pair of international investment instruments designed to help developing countries mitigate rises in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change. This came a day after they were severely criticised by the international charity, Oxfam, for not raising adequate funds for the plights of developing countries suffering from climate change.
 

“Ethiopia’s immediate climate change adaptation needs will cost 800 million dollars, while the new funds-rich countries pledge to the UN’s adaptation fund for all of the 49 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is only 170 million dollars,” Oxfam said at the G-8 Summit on Monday, July 7.
 

Ethiopia is one of the poor countries that have allegedly been confronted with the repercussions of global climate change recently, despite its consecutive double- digit growth in the past five years. Due to a failure of Belg rain in February and March this year, which authorities say is attributable to global warming, the country has been hit once again by a drought resulting in the starvation of 4.6 million people nationwide, according to the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency (DPPA).

The eight major economies on the following day deliberated on how to support developing countries, such as Ethiopia, which are struggling to stay afloat amid such challenges.
 

“Substantial finance and investments will be needed to meet the urgent challenges of mitigation, adaptation and access to clear energy in developing countries,” read a joint statement the leaders released after discussions on climatic conditions.
 

However, their assistance to poor countries through the adaptation fund, however, has exposed them to criticisms from humanitarian agencies. Their current pledge has not escaped from such criticisms either.
 

“We cannot take this as a firm commitment,” Antonio Hill, Oxfam spokesperson told Fortune. “The US contribution to the amount is not yet confirmed, as it awaits congress to endorse it.”
 

In December last year, the UN approved an adaptation fund to bolster defences for poor countries that lack the money, technology and human resources to cope with climate change at its climate meeting in Bali, Indonesia. The fund is intended to finance climate change projects, including sea walls to guard against expanding oceans, early warning systems for extreme events, improved water supplies for drought areas, and training in new agricultural techniques.
 

The fund is to be initially administered by the Global Environment Facility, which donor governments established 16 years ago to fund conservation projects. The World Bank is to act as its trustee, and a 16-member board, drawn from rich and poor nations from the Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, would oversee it.
 

Funding will come from a two per cent levy on revenues generated by the clean development mechanism, the scheme allowing industrialized nations to pay for carbon credits produced by emission-reduction projects in the developing world, and credit them against their own emissions targets.
 

However, the goal of achieving at least 50pc reduction of global emissions by 2050, despite being discussed by the leaders, was on shaky ground as the leaders considered it an ambitious target if developing countries and emerging economies, such as China and India, do not stand for the cause.

“G-8 leaders today signalled their support for climate chaos by spewing futile rhetoric that will do nothing to stop the toll that global warming is taking on people and the planet,” a press release subsequently issued by Friends of the Earth International said. “The leaders’ demands for developing countries to agree to binding commitments show total disregard for their own responsibilities towards the rest of the world.”

BY MICHAEL CHEBUD
FORTUNE STAFF WRITER