Leaders of the world’s Group of Eight (G8) top industrial nations on Friday wrapped up three days of talks overshadowed by the London terror attacks with a joint vow to fight terrorism.
G8 leaders pledged to give an extra $50-billion in development aid by 2010, with half the funds going to Africa. They also promised urgent measures to combat global warming.
With the London bomb explosions on their minds, leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia said terrorism will not prevail.
”We will not allow violence to change our societies,” said a G8 statement, adding: ”The terrorists will not succeed.”
Showing their solidarity with G8 nations, the leaders of China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa as well as other African nations said they are equally committed to fighting terrorism.
”The politics that we represent will win and triumph over terrorism,” said British Prime Minister and G8 summit host Tony Blair.
”We speak today in the shadow of terrorism, but it will not obscure what we came to achieve,” Blair said, adding that terrorists want not only to kill and maim innocent people but ”to put despair and anger and hatred into people’s hearts”.
”It is hope that is the alternative to this hatred,” the British premier said.
Blair said the summit is proof that G8 leaders are committed to changing the world. The G8 meeting is ”a beginning, not an end”, Blair underlined.
The summit agreed a breakthrough summit deal on spending an extra $50-billion in development aid by 2010, a move that Blair said is a sign of the G8’s ”solidarity” with Africa.
Blair insisted that the Africa aid package will help save lives in Africa but warned that implementation of pledges is key to fight poverty.
”It is not the end of poverty, but it is the hope that it can be ended,” Blair underlined.
The summit did not achieve all the goals set out by pro-development activists, but the new aid plan for Africa represents progress, Blair insisted.
”It is the definitive expression of our collective will to act in the face of death, disease and conflict,” Blair said, adding that G8 leaders will also help set up a new peacekeeping force in Africa.
In return, African governments have agreed to practise good governance, he said.
The G8 focus on Africa followed intense pressure from aid charities, rock stars and celebrities who campaigned long and hard for an increase in aid for the continent.
G8 leaders agreed on an action plan to combat global warming and decided to hold talks with the world’s emerging economies on slashing harmful greenhouse-gas emissions.
A first meeting with China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa on ways of tackling climate change will be held in Britain on November 1.
The deal is expected to end years of transatlantic feuding over the merits of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming, which the US opposes.
The pledge also included a first-ever recognition by US President George Bush that there is scientific evidence to prove the global climate is changing because of harmful greenhouse-gas emissions.
G8 leaders vowed to act with ”resolve and urgency” to tackle global warming, adding that efforts will focus on ”reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, improving the global environment, enhancing energy security and cutting air pollution”.
G8 leaders promised to improve energy efficiency and development new, cleaner energy technologies — a priority for the US.
Leaders of the exclusive club decided on Thursday to continue their summit agenda despite shock over the London bomb explosions.
Security at the summit was intensified, with police on heightened alert following the London attacks. — Sapa-DPA