Why a sense of powerlessness hangs over Hokkaido for these G8 leaders

Last Modified: 07 Jul 2008
By: Jonathan Rugman

What globalisation gives, it takes away. From oil prices to climate change there's little for world leaders to do except talk.

It has been pouring with rain here all day, a low mist hanging over the forests and volcanoes of Hokkaido island, leaving the leaders of the G8 nations with their heads, quite literally, in the clouds. The question is whether this summit, like the weather, will turn out to be a damp squib.

Whether leaders who often claim their domestic unpopularity is the fault of global factors beyond their control, can all of a sudden show that they can control these factors, after all.

Can leaders who often claim their domestic unpopularity is the fault of global factors beyond their control, all of a sudden show that they can control these factors?

The G8 was borne of crisis - the oil shocks of the 1970s - but now these leaders face not one crisis but four, like London buses arriving all at once: high food prices, high oil prices, markets in turmoil and an ever warming climate.

On food, these leaders can do something; spend more of their development budgets on seed, fertiliser and agricultural research so that Africa, a net importer of food, can grow more of its own.

Gordon Brown is talking of doubling the output of African foodstuffs in the next 5 to 10 years. But is the G8's enthusiasm for helping Africa waning when budget belts have to be tightened at home?

And when Africa, from Zimbabwe to Darfur, seems unable to police itself, good governance being the quid pro quo of development aid? The most significant progress on food shortages will not be made here, but in Geneva on 21 July, if it happens at all. This is when the so-called Doha round of world trade talks is set to enter its final stage.

If the world's leaders strike a trade deal, Africa will be able to sell more of its food on world markets - and therefore, the theory goes, feel encouraged to grow more.

But that's a big "if".

The talks have been stalled for two years, and the last trade deal was agreed way back in 1994.

The problem, say the British, is not the French banging on about protecting their farmers but the Brazilians, whose economy is bigger than that of Canada and Italy; although Brazil, unlike these two, strangely isn't a member of the G8 at all.

On high oil prices, a debate is raging here over whether Opec could or should produce more oil.

The British and Germans think being less oil dependent would do us the world of good. The French and Germans think the problem is not demand outstretching supply, but speculators creating a bubble in the market which needs to be burst.

Meanwhile the Russians, admitted to the G8 in 1998, are laughing all the way to the bank because they are, after Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter in the world.

So there is no united approach to oil here in Hokkaido.

And as for financial markets, well the laissez faire Americans and British are not inclined to clamp down on capitalism's naughty boys.

And don't expect a deal on climate change this week.

A year ago the Americans watered down any firm commitment to emissions cuts, and they are set to do that again.

Because, they say, any deal needs to include China and India, with the real deadline for a successor to the Kyoto Treaty not until December 2009, when the world is due to thrash out a deal in Copenhagen, not in Hokkaido this week.

So a sense of powerlessness hangs over Hokkaido.

For 10 years, we've never had it so good: globalisation delivering cheap food and booming markets to the western world.

Now globalisation has turned against us - China and India demanding more food, more oil and more money for what they sell to the rest of us, with the climate warming as the world's economy shifts and grows.

What globalisation gives, it takes away, and can anybody really control it any more?