G8 empty summit

Yet another G8 summit is upon us and no doubt the outcome will be usual high minded promises to eradicate poverty and address climate change. But as we have seen from previous summits these promises are empty and self serving. 
In 2005 the Gleneagles summit resulted in a promise to tackle third world debt and alliviate poverty through donations of up to $25 billion. Both Bono and Bob Geldof recently held a press conference in which they outlined that $22 billion was still outstanding two years later.
 
Last year oil and security made the top of the agenda with the crisis in Lebanon, the Iranian nuclear standoff and the Iraqi debacle overshadowing the conference. The G8 showed their true colours by looking at ways of securing world oil supplies for themselves whilst ignoring the consequences (terrorism, poverty, pollution) of this policy on the inhabitants of the oil supplying countries and their neighbours.
 
This year climate change is on the agenda but already the outcome is destined to be more empty rhetoric. Already the US wants to remove the following sentences from the draft communique;  "We firmly agree that resolute and concerted international action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and sustain our common basis of living," and "To this end we will, in the face of the U.N. Climate Change Conference at the end of this year, send a clear message on the further development of the international regime to combat climate change."
 
This is the suggested replacement; "Addressing climate change is a long-term issue that will require global participation and a diversity of approaches to take into account differing circumstances." It's like something from a leaving certificate essay. A statement that barely addresses the urgent nature of the issue but ensures that the developed economies can continue to devour fossil fuels while waiting on the supposed saviour of new technologies.
 
It is becoming increasingly apparent that both the G8 summit and the Davos meeting are not the forums at which the problems of the world are to be solved. They merely serve as meetings at which the continued exploitation of the planet is planned.