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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed Tuesday to rich nations not to backtrack on assistance to Africa and action against climate change at next week's Group of Eight summit. Leaks of the draft statement for the July 7-9 summit in Japan suggest that rich nations will water down commitments to help Africa and offer little new on cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.
Ban, in Tokyo on the first leg of an Asian tour, said that wealthy nations should lead the campaign on the "triple crisis" of climate change, poverty and rising food prices. "They have the capacity, they have the resources and I hope the leaders will demonstrate their political will," Ban told a news conference in Tokyo. Reports have said that the draft statement of the G8 summit -- which brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- will not cite a specific figure on development aid.
The 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, called for a doubling of rich nations' foreign aid by 2010 to 50 billion dollars, half of it to Africa. "What I would like to urge and emphasise is that the leaders of the G8 should implement their commitment which was made in Gleneagles," Ban said. British charity Oxfam denounced the current G8 draft as an "outrage."
"At least there is still time for the Japanese presidency to show some leadership and turn things around at next week's summit," Max Lawson, senior policy advisor at Oxfam, said in a statement.
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