G8 SUMMIT:G8 leaders are under pressure to deliver more than predictable platitudes by the time the summit wraps up, writes David McNeillin Hokkaido
TANABATA FESTIVAL, which coincidentally fell on the opening day of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Hokkaido, celebrates the granting of wishes. Once a year, Japanese people write prayers on thin strips of paper and hang them on bamboo branches in the hope that those prayers will be answered.
For many, the annual G8 conference is a bit like that - a wish list of pleas from across the world to a team of powerful and sometimes cruel gods. Indeed, a poverty action group took this image literally in a full-page advertisement in a British newspaper yesterday, showing a samurai chopping down the Tanabata bamboo tree.
Thousands of campaigners, non-governmental organisations and activists ringing this heavily fortified site in Hokkaido want a binding commitment from the world's top 16 polluters - responsible for 80 per cent of global-warming gases - to drastically cut CO2 emissions. But despite a pledge by host Japan to lead the way with a 60-80 per cent cut by mid-century, most fear that the chance of agreement around a table that includes US president George W Bush is slight.
To nobody's great surprise, the debate on climate change was overshadowed by Africa yesterday. But UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon reminded journalists that climate, food shortages and development problems in Africa were interconnected.
"We tend to think of climate change as something that will happen in the future. It is not and we must take action now."
Africa naturally wants the G8 nations to meet their aid obligations. Year after year, most have fallen well short of a promise to deliver 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product in aid to poorer countries. There are real fears that the horrific scenes of famine and death that sparked Live Aid almost a quarter of a century ago could return to the world's television screens.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick, who is in Hokkaido for the summit, said recently that 100 million people had been driven into poverty by the global food crisis.
But with the G8 economies heading south and national coffers shrinking, campaigners fear the chances of a major aid package being delivered are slim.
China and India, together home to one-third of the world's population and rapidly climbing the world's economic league tables, naturally want a seat at the G8 table. But with Japan and the US fearful that allowing them in would dilute their influence, that debate too will be postponed.
Japan has its own wish, rehearsed repeatedly on television here throughout the day: that the 4,000 foreign journalists staying in Hokkaido this week will tell the world about the kidnapping of its citizens by North Korea. Millions of Japanese believe Pyongyang is still holding some of the victims.
But despite a weekend promise by Bush that the US would "not forget" the abductee issue, many countries believe disarming North Korea is a much higher priority.
The fact that almost every line and comma of the eventual G8 communique had been haggled over months before a leader set foot in Hokkaido adds to the cynicism of many activists here.
"G8 nations are the problem, not the solution, to what is happening in the world," said a Japanese activist outside the conference venue who gave her name as Kana. "We are telling them to go home."
Millions will be hoping for something other than predictable platitudes when the summit wraps up tomorrow.
Will they get their wish? Last week, Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda called the coincidence of the Tanabata festival falling on July 7th "auspicious".
He may live to regret his words.