TUESDAY |JULY 08, 2008 | PHILIPPINES

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G8 countries urged to admit
role in food and climate crises


INTERNATIONAL debt campaigners on Monday urged G8 leaders to admit responsibility for the food and climate crises and the continuing debt problem of developing countries.

In a statement, more than 100 international, regional, national, and local organizations and individuals, also asked people's organizations and movements and concerned citizens to join the move to challenge the G8 countries to act on their seven-point demand.

The demands are: cancel all illegitimate debt; stop financing projects and policies that contribute to climate change; respect efforts of South countries to reverse the harmful policies that have led to the food crisis; ban speculation on food prices; end the use of loans and debt cancellation to impose conditions; pay restitution and reparations for the huge ecological debts owed to the South; and facilitate the return of stolen assets kept in the banks in the G8 countries.

The statement was initiated by the Jubilee South - Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS-APMDD). The signatories from the Philippines include the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, Movement for People's Freedom, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Center for Migrant Advocacy, and Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS).

The signatories said high oil prices, worsening climate conditions, and price manipulation by trading cartels and speculators contributed to soaring food prices but the use of debt, access to credit, and debt relief on countries in the South also resulted in the drop of agricultural production and less sustainable agricultural practices.

They said other policies that resulted in higher food prices include the removal of state subsidies for basic food crops, reduction in spending for irrigation systems, prescriptions for export-oriented high growth economic strategies, trade liberalization, expansion of land use conversion from production of food to private housing estates, golf courses and resorts.

They said G8 governments, the biggest bilateral lenders and the most influential members of international financial institutions, should cancel all illegitimate debts and respect the action of Southern countries to reverse the policies that have led to the food crisis.

The "illegitimate debts" that FDC referred to included the Bohol irrigation project and the San Roque Multi-purpose Irrigation project.

The signatories said the G8 governments bear primary responsibility for the climate crisis because half of the world's green house gas (GHG) emissions come from their countries and that most of them are lagging behind the reduction targets of GHG emissions. "Even the European Union, with its bold plan of being the first de-carbonized economy in the world, has undermined its own claims by planning to build 40 major new coal power plants in the next five years," they said.

They also said lenders like the World Bank and the regional development banks are major sources of funds for projects involving fossil fuel industries, paid for by peoples of the South. Since the signing of the Climate Convention in 1992, the World Bank approved more than 133 financial packages to oil, coal and gas extraction projects, comprising of loans, equity investments, guarantees, and grants that amount to more than $28 billion.

The Asian Development Bank, to which Japan and the United States are the biggest shareholders, is a major lender to coal, oil and gas projects in Asia, approving close to $2 billion worth of loan packages since the year 2000.

The signatories lamented that the debt service payments hampers the ability of countries and peoples of the South to deal with the food and climate crises. - Regina Bengco

 


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