G8 Summit Offers Historic Opportunity to Uplift Millions

G8 Summit Offers Historic Opportunity to Uplift Millions

July 6, 2005

Today, the heads of the state of the G8 nations meet in Gleneagles, Scotland, to begin a monumental global effort to tackle two of the world’s biggest problems: poverty and global warming. Moving poverty and climate change to the top of this agenda is itself a notable victory, the result of years of efforts by men and women whose names you'll never find in the history books. But now the ball has been handed to the G8 leaders and President Bush in particular. What’s at stake?

• Do our leaders have the will to provide millions of people in poverty the opportunity for a decent and dignified life? There is widespread global agreement that developed nations, and the United States in particular, must commit more targeted aid to Africa; that debt relief efforts must be deeper and faster; and that our global trading system must be reformed to facilitate Africa's access to fair markets, particularly regarding agriculture. But the bar should not be set there. Global leaders can't just check a box on African poverty and global warming—they are problems that developed over decades, and will require multi-year commitments to resolve just like other major global problems like terrorism.
  
  
• Will our leaders finally recognize and address the manmade origin and catastrophic threat of global warming? Although President Bush remains steadfastly opposed to the Kyoto Accord, the Guardian reports that "the US has moved enough for [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair to claim that a consensus has been reached" on other significant steps to counter global warming. Perhaps President Bush finally listened to the nearly unanimous voice of Americans (94 percent) who believe the U.S. "should limit its greenhouse gases at least as much as the other developed countries do on average.," according to a new poll from the Program on International Policy Attitudes.
  
  
• Can the United States regain its historical position as a force for global progress and moral leadership? President Bush has a chance to repair much of the damage his unilateral foreign policies and deeply unpopular war in Iraq have caused across the globe. The president will have a rare opportunity to listen to the needs and desires of others and put the “courage of his convictions” behind a truly global effort to fight the world’s biggest problems.