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Press Release
G-5 Political Declaration
(Hokkaido; July 08, 2008)
We the
Leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, gathered in
Sapporo, Japan, on 8 July 2008, have resolved to issue this Political
Declaration:
1. Mankind is at a critical historical crossroad. The potential of
globalization and innovation to raise living standards is unprecedented,
but so are social and sustainable development challenges around the
world.
2. The interrelationships of a global economic slowdown marked by
financial uncertainty, the persistence of trade protectionist
distortions, soaring food and oil prices, and the threats posed by
climate change add complexity to the current scenario.
3. Our increasing interdependence demands an integrated and concerted
response to these global challenges. We must ensure development and
prosperity on a sustainable path, both within and across nations. That
is the historical challenge of our generation. To achieve this
fundamental goal, we must act in a coordinated manner to ensure
equitable growth with care for the environment, taking appropriate
account of cross-border interactions in fulfillment of our shared
responsibility.
World Economy
4. The global
economy continues to expand, but at a slower rate than in previous
years. Most emerging and developing economies have proved resilient so
far to adverse circumstances. Nevertheless, the international community
as a whole faces important policy challenges to maintaining financial
stability and mitigating global economic risks. Headline inflation is of
particular concern.
5. We reaffirm
our commitment to the establishment of a stable and orderly
international financial system, more transparent and legitimate. The
voice and representation of developing countries in the decision making
of international financial institutions should be significantly
improved, especially at the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank.
6. Given current global macroeconomic imbalances, it is essential to
enhance policy coordination not only among advanced economies but also
with emerging market economies, including by reinforcing existing
multilateral mechanisms for coordination. The Financial G-20 is an
appropriate forum for this endeavor.
7. The global financial architecture and its surveillance capacities
must be also strengthened to contribute to the prevention and resolution
of potential financial crises but, more importantly, to support
sustainable development. In particular, it is necessary to provide
international financial institutions with an adequate array of
instruments to preserve global financial stability and smoothen the
supply shocks derived from higher food and oil prices, especially in
support of least developed and middle income countries.
8. The world economic outlook lends urgency to the establishment of a
just, open, reasonable and non-discriminatory international trade
system. It is essential to achieve an early conclusion to the Doha Round
that fully supports development in accordance with its agreed mandate.
Developed countries must dismantle barriers and distortions, especially
agriculture subsidies and domestic support that affect the overall
efforts of developing countries. This would provide a much needed
impetus to global economic growth and would positively contribute to an
enabling environment for development.
Food Security
9. The rise in
global food prices poses a new challenge to the fight against poverty
and hunger. To ensure food security is a shared responsibility that
calls for swift and resolute action by all Governments and relevant
actors.
10. The world produces enough food, but not enough people have access to
it. We call upon the international community to devise better ways and
means of producing and distributing food. Multi-billion agricultural
trade-distorting support in developed countries have hampered the
development of food production capacity in developing countries,
critically reducing their possibilities of reaction to the present
crisis. We therefore reaffirm the imperative of creating an enabling
international environment for agro-produce related trade, establishing a
just and reasonable international trade regime for agricultural products
and concluding the Doha Round with meaningful commitments to
agricultural subsidies reductions. Also, it is necessary to combat
speculation and minimize the use of measures that could increase
volatility of international food prices.
11. The food
security crisis demands a rapid and substantial increase in the
allocation of resources to support rural development and combat hunger
and poverty. We urge developed countries, in particular, to increase
their emergency aid at an early date. Innovative mechanisms of financing
and enhanced flows of investment can also play an important role in
addition to the required increase in flows of official aid.
12. Technological innovations and international cooperation can
significantly increase agricultural productivity and contribute to
combating the current food security crisis. Intellectual property rights
in the agricultural domain should strike a balance between the greater
good of humankind and incentives to innovation. In particular, we
encourage collaborative action for better seeds and farm outputs that
are sustainable and environmentally sound as well as a comprehensive
approach in all fields including finance, trade, aid, environment,
intellectual property rights and technology transfer, so as to create a
conducive international environment for food security.
13. The current food security crisis has multiple and complex causes
whose assessment requires objectiveness. It is essential to address the
challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels, in view of the world’s
food security, energy and sustainable development needs. If developed
sustainably, biofuels can effectively contribute to generating
opportunities and achieving food and energy security altogether. To this
purpose, it is important that public policies for production of biofuels
contribute to sustainable development and the well-being of the most
vulnerable people and do not threaten food security.
Climate Change
14. We urge
the international community to address the challenge of climate change
through long term cooperative action in accordance with the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto
Protocol, especially the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities. We take our
responsibilities seriously and welcome the Bali Action Plan and the Bali
Roadmap and are committed to the completion of negotiations by 2009.
15. Negotiations for a shared vision on long-term cooperative action at
the UNFCCC, including a long-term global goal for greenhouse gases (GHG)
emissions reductions, must be based on an equitable burden sharing
paradigm that ensures equal sustainable development potential for all
citizens of the world and that takes into account historical
responsibility and respective capabilities as a fair and just approach.
It is essential that developed countries take the lead in achieving
ambitious and absolute greenhouse gas emissions reductions in accordance
with their quantified emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol after
2012, of at least 25 40 per cent range for emissions reductions below
1990 levels by 2020, and, by 2050, by between 80 and 95 per cent below
those levels, with comparability of efforts among them.
16. We also urge the international community, particularly developed
countries, to promote sustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles
responsive to mitigation requirements.
17. For developing countries, adaptation is of cardinal importance,
particularly given their vulnerability, limited capacity and inadequate
means. We stress the need of scaling up resources for adaptation and
strengthening of adaptive potential in developing countries in order to
reinforce capabilities to prevent and confront the increased frequency
and scale of natural disasters and the other adverse effects of climate
change.
18.We, on our
part, are committed to undertaking nationally appropriate mitigation and
adaptation actions which also support sustainable development. We would
increase the depth and range of these actions supported and enabled by
financing, technology and capacity-building with a view to achieving a
deviation from business-as-usual. In this regard, in the negotiations
under the Bali Road Map, we urge the international community to focus on
the core climate change issues rather than inappropriate issues like
competitiveness and trade protection measures which are being dealt with
in other forums.
19.Affordable access to adaptation and mitigation technologies, achieved
through a suite of funding mechanisms, investment structures and policy
tools, is a key enabling condition for developing countries to tackle
climate change. We call upon the international community to work towards
a strengthened scheme for technology innovation, development, transfer
and deployment, and a comprehensive review of the intellectual property
rights regime for such technologies in order to strike an adequate
balance between rewards for innovators and the global public good.
20. Enhanced financial support for developing countries must cover
incremental and opportunity costs to meet the challenges of climate
change. New and innovative financial mechanisms must mobilize additional
resources beyond the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol and
other instruments of the carbon market, without diverting national or
multilateral and ODA resources from the imperatives of development and
poverty alleviation.
21. Developed
countries should commit clearly to significant additional financing to
support both mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. We
recognize the need for further financing options to complement, not
substitute, the financial arrangements under the Kyoto Protocol. In this
regard, we welcome for further exploration, inter alia, the proposal by
China for setting a climate financing goal for all developed countries,
such as 0.5% of GDP (in addition to ODA) for climate action in
developing countries, as well as the Mexican initiative for a World
Climate Change Fund
Energy Security
22. Energy security is essential to ensure the steady growth of the
global economy. We call upon the international community to strengthen
overall cooperation on energy development and utilization, with emphasis
on renewable energy and energy efficiency and giving adequate
consideration to solar, wind and hydro-electrical power, and bio-fuels
such as ethanol and bio-diesel without adversely affecting food
security.
23. More efforts should be made to develop clean energy technologies
that are affordable, environment-friendly and suitable to the conditions
of developing countries, ensuring that these technologies be adequately
transferred to developing countries.
24. We must take an integrated approach to international energy
cooperation and international development cooperation, ensuring access
to energy by developing countries on an equitable and sustainable
manner.
Millennium Development Goals and Monterrey Consensus
25. The global
community of nations has recognized that achieving the internationally
agreed development goals, including those contained in the United
Nations Millennium Declaration, demands a new partnership between
developed and developing countries.
26. This was stated in the Monterrey Consensus, whereby the
international community agreed to work in a coordinated manner to
support development by mobilizing domestic resources, attracting
international resource flows, developing innovative financial
mechanisms, harnessing the benefits of international trade, increasing
international financial and technical cooperation, achieving sustainable
debt financing and external debt relief, and enhancing the coherence and
consistency of the international monetary, financial and trading
systems.
27. As we reach with uneven success the mid-point in the process to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the least
developed countries in Africa and other regions, the international
financial community should join efforts to preserve financial stability
and resume the path of vigorous and sustainable economic growth as
necessary conditions to attaining these goals. We urge developed
countries to renew their resolve to support these processes in the
global interest, particularly regarding trade openness, the fulfillment
of their commitments to allocate at least 0.7% of their GNP to ODA, and
the reform to global governance.
28. The
international community should ensure that, from their holistic
perspective, the upcoming UN Millennium Development Goals High-level
event and the Doha Follow-up International Conference on Financing for
Development contribute to achieving all-round and balanced progress
towards the Millennium Development Goals at the global level. A
follow-up mechanism to continue to monitor the implementation of the
Monterrey Consensus should be one of the results of the Doha Conference.
South-South cooperation
29. We reaffirm the role of South-South cooperation in the context of
multilateralism, and the need to strengthen it as an important platform
for developing countries to jointly respond to development challenges.
30. We reiterate that South-South cooperation enjoys important
comparative advantages and complements rather than replaces North-South
cooperation. In this context, we call upon Governments, international
organizations and all relevant actors, to support South-South
cooperation, by fully tapping the synergies of triangular cooperation.
31. While acknowledging progress in South-South cooperation in recent
years, we are committed to continue broadening its reach and impact
through innovative models of cooperation based on the principles of
equality and mutual benefit.
The Role of
the G5
32. In fulfilling our shared responsibility as major developing
countries, we are determined to continue engaging in all efforts leading
to achieve the improved global economic governance and other major
global changes required to ensure that globalization and interdependence
work for the benefit of all.
33. We thus commit ourselves to a strengthened multilateralism, keeping
fully engaged to intensified international cooperation under the
leadership of the United Nations. We will continue to strive for a
comprehensive reform of the United Nations that includes strengthening
the General Assembly, revitalizing ECOSOC, reforming the Secretariat,
strengthening the UN gender architecture and, in particular, achieving
an early reform of the UN Security Council. We urge the international
community to faithfully implement the outcomes of major World Summits,
especially the Millennium Development Goals,
34. the Monterrey Consensus and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
and to continue promoting shared initiatives to rise to the new global
challenges and opportunities of our era.
35. As a key
strategic objective, we will continue contributing to multilaterally
promote an action-oriented global partnership for equitable and
sustainable development, including by making positive contributions in
such critical areas as global governance, financial stability, climate
change as well as food and energy security.
36. With these purposes, based on the principles of equality, mutual
respect and cooperation for the common good, we are ready to consolidate
bilateral relations, improve our cooperation level and mechanisms, and
continue the dialogue and collaboration with the G8 and the
international community at large. |
