Looking for Leadership
If there is a point to gathering the leaders of eight of the world’s richest and most powerful nations each year, it is to thrash out policies for tackling the most pressing and contentious problems.
Three such issues confront the presidents and prime ministers assembled in Heiligendamm, Germany, this week. They need to apply the brakes to climate change, live up to past pledges on Africa and halt Iran’s rush to develop nuclear weapons technology. All three issues have been discussed endlessly at previous Group of 8 gatherings. The challenge now is to back up past declarations with effective action before another year slips away and the problems become even more acute.
President Bush has now finally moved beyond denial on climate change. But his proposal for a conference of 15 of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters can hardly be called global leadership. It pins its hopes on wishful technological breakthroughs and sidesteps mandatory ceilings.
A more serious proposal comes from this year’s host, Chancellor Angela Merkel. She would impose mandatory caps and incentives to achieve a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by midcentury. That’s far too specific for Mr. Bush, who is now pressing for watered-down language in the final communiqué. Mrs. Merkel and like-minded leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair need to hold their ground.
Two years ago, the eight countries pledged to double assistance to Africa by 2010 and liberalize trade opportunities. So far, they have made little significant progress toward those goals. Global trade negotiations are stalled and apart from one-shot debt relief for Nigeria, overall aid numbers have barely budged. Without year-by-year aid targets, the 2010 goal will not be met. This week, the leaders should make a further commitment to fund the widest possible access to AIDS treatment and care. Mr. Bush has shown leadership on AIDS funding. Others now need to step up as well.
The most urgent issue is Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest warning against further sanctions is a blatant attempt to manipulate divisions among the eight. The warnings should be going in the other direction, with Iran being plainly told that further nuclear experimentation will lead to much tougher penalties.
Any hope of getting Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions will require a full-court sanctions press from the United States, the European Union and Russia. Russia isn’t as rich as the other Group of 8 nations and is far less democratic. But its longstanding trade and technological relations with Iran give it special influence.
The United States has taken a firmer diplomatic line than Europe, which still nourishes illusions about Iran’s willingness to respond to arguments alone. Europe needs to wake up to unpleasant realities and increase the pressure. A tough and unified trans-Atlantic stand could bring Russia along as well. To wait any longer on this issue is to court disaster.
