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G-8 backs Nuke deal

Toyako (Japan), July 9
Wrapping up their three-day summit here, the leaders of the world’s top industrialised nations today tacitly backed the Indo-US civil nuclear deal and agreed to tackle rising oil and food prices, amid differences with the developing nations on fighting climate change. In a breakthrough for the troubled Indo-US nuclear deal, the G-8 decided to adopt a “more robust” approach to civil nuclear cooperation with India to help meet its growing energy needs.

“We look forward to working with India, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other partners to advance India’s non-proliferation commitments and progress so as to facilitate a more robust approach to civil nuclear cooperation with India to help it meet its growing energy needs in a manner that enhances and reinforces the global non-proliferation regime,” the Chair’s summary released at the end of the G-8 summit said here. The statement came hours after US President George W. Bush met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on the sidelines of the G-8 summit.

The G-8, made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US, also held a customary outreach session with developing nations like India and China. Manmohan Singh, in his intervention at the MEM, firmly rejected pleas by Bush that developing countries like India must also reduce emissions and told industrialised nations not to use climate change as a ruse to impose conditionalities that will hurt their growth. Singh put the onus on the developed countries to do much more in cutting greenhouse emissions when he said, “The quicker you reduce your emissions, the greater the incentive for us to follow.”

Earlier, the G-8 leaders expressed their “strong will” to conclude an “ambitious, balanced and comprehensive” WTO Doha agreement. “We are strongly committed to use opportunities of globalisation for the benefit of our citizens and global growth,” the G-8 summit leaders declaration said. “We reaffirmed our commitment to resist protectionist pressures and expressed our strong will to work towards the conclusion of an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive WTO Doha agreement,” it said.

At the same time, they agreed on the need to address, in particular, issues of elevated oil and food prices and global inflationary pressure, stability of the financial markets and fight against protectionism. In response to the sharp rise in oil prices, the leaders agreed to improve balance between supply and demand through efforts and dialogue by both producing and consuming countries to improve transparency.

“We emphasised the need for increased production and refining capacities as well as expanded investment on the supply side, and reiterated the importance to make further efforts to improve energy efficiency as well as pursue energy diversification on the demand side,” the statement said.