The Hindu Business Line : Unfinished business

IT WAS inevitable that the meeting of G8 at Gleneagles, Scotland, to which India and four other countries — Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa — were special invitees, was overshadowed by the serial bomb blasts in London.

The participants must have naturally felt disabled from focussing their minds fully on whatever they had gathered to discuss.

The crisis in Africa caused by the debt overhang, spread of AIDS and rampant poverty and recurrent famine had been the subject matter of endless parleys at various forums for as long as one can remember, and there had been no dearth of recommendations. Because of the efforts of the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, who had put finishing touches to his proposals by sounding the leaders in advance of the meeting, this part of the agenda seems to have had a smooth passage to the satisfaction of the group.

The concerns raised by increasing scientific evidence about global warming were, however, left hanging in mid-air. Even without the disturbed state of mind of the leaders thanks to the tragedy being enacted in London, the topic would have hit roadblocks.

For one, the US has been persisting with its stubborn refusal to countenance the Kyoto protocol, and without the US signing it, all talk of controlling noxious fossil fuel emissions for which it should bear a large share of the blame becomes farcical.

For another, the developing nations, with India in the van, had long been pointing out that it was the industrial nations which were the worst culprits in fouling up environment and, they should first set their houses in order before they called other countries to account.

Further, developing nations have to do a lot of catching up in respect of economic development, and they cannot simply afford to have any let-up in their fight against poverty, ignorance and disease.

In any case, the subject of global warming bristles with unresolved financial, technological and operational issues which are still waiting to be addressed.

What was needed to be done before it came to G8 was to build a consensus through inter-Governmental consultations behind the scenes. It is puzzling why it was sprung on this summit, when it had not been fully baked, as it were, and was not ready to be served.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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