G8 on Africa, Climate Change

G8 leaders meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, June 6-8, promised to follow through on development commitments to Africa and to work together toward a global climate change agreement once the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.

The G8 reaffirmed a 2005 pledge to increase official development assistance (ODA) to Africa, with other donors, by US$25 billion, to an estimated US$50 billion a year by 2010.
Annual ODA to Africa, which the World Bank estimated dipped slightly to US$35.1 billion in 2006, will be regularly updated in the G8 Africa Progress Report, according to G8 Summit declaration.

On climate change, the G8 agreed the United Nations climate process is the “appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change,” according to the Chair’s summary of the Summit.

The summary calls on “all parties” to participate in the UN Climate Change Conference in Indonesia in December 2007 with a view to achieving a comprehensive post-2012 climate change agreement (post Kyoto) .

Major emitters of greenhouse gases should agree on a new global framework by the end of 2008 which could contribute to a global agreement under the UN process by 2009.

Katherine Sierra, Vice President, Sustainable Development, World Bank, said the Bank welcomed the G-8 Declaration endorsing a number of key initiatives that the Bank is pursuing with other development partners, including the role of market mechanisms such as carbon trading, the creation of a forest carbon partnership for avoided deforestation (deforestation causes 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions), a financial framework for energy efficiency and clean energy, and the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership.