This year’s G8 summit is brought to you by Japan, who as David Pilling reports have decided to hold the event in a uniquely Japanese-sounding venue: the Windsor Hotel on Hokkaido.
As with the Germany G8 at Heiligendamm last year, Japan plans to put climate change front and centre – an issue on which, Pilling reports, “Japan likes to feel it has strong leadership credentials”.
Japan has among the world’s most advanced energy-saving technology and lent its name to the Kyoto Protocol, a breakthrough agreement, albeit a flawed one. That gives it the moral authority, officials say, to act as a bridge between the far-flung positions of the US, Europe, China and India.
But, he goes on, that strategy is not without challenges:
Japanese officials admit that their “bridging” strategy is fraught with difficulties. At home, the government is handcuffed by the intransigent attitude of business, which insists on voluntary cuts rather than mandatory targets reinforced by a carbon tax. Partly as a result, Japan is far from achieving its Kyoto targets and is likely to make up much of the difference by buying emission rights.
The debate is also moving very quickly, say officials. The growing scientific and political consensus on the urgency of tackling global warming could rapidly make Tokyo’s emphasis on technology and voluntary national targets out of date. Some Japanese officials say that, by July, serious discussion may well have shifted to the cap-and-trade mechanisms favoured by Europe.
International development, too, figures heavily among Japanese priorities. Fletcher Tembo has a good discussion of this on the Overseas Development Institute’s blog, where he observes that while the midpoint for the Millennium Development Goals has just passed, levels of aid to developing countries still haven’t increased significantly – at least, not after debt relief (supposed in theory to be additional to aid) and aid to Afghanistan and Iraq have been taken off the balance sheet.
But in practice, there’s every chance that events will buffet the Japanese agenda – especially if oil prices continue their upward march and the solvency crunch continues to worsen. Meantime, the elephant in the room continues to be: how substantive a discussion of climate and energy is it actually possible to have without China and India as full participants (rather than guests invited for canapes)? Quite a challenge for Yasuo Fukuda, the new PM – Japan’s third in a year…
PS. As preparations for the summit (to be held from 7 – 9 July) get going in earnest, the best website to watch will – as ever – be that of the G8 Information Centre at the University of Toronto. Meanwhile, here’s the official Japanese website too, where the ‘What’s New’ section today helpfully informs us that the domain name has been renewed for 2008. Lucky, that.
