Civil G8 2006

Civil G8 — is your opportunity
to discuss global problems!

earth

Expert Opinion

Nigel Martin


Montreal International Rorum (FIM)



I think today we have an amazing opportunity and a difficult challenge. A few people called me before last week and said should I go all away Russia in one day. My answer was “Yes” because we have an opportunity and we must use it. But we have only a day to do it. And the challenge for us is to take this incredible momentum that we benefit from this year and transfer it to the energy for the next year. And we don’t have a lot of time to do it.

This has taken a long time since 1999 to what Russia represents today. We have not to loose the credibility we have today. We have many issues and many things we have to keep our credibility. But we don’t speak about the legitimacy of G8 to meet.
Every time that we are doing the monitoring of the decisions, we are looking for recommendations, for more effective ways to strengthen the G8 mechanism but we don’t want the G8 to be a super implementation body.

The second principle is that during meetings with the Sherpas we would guarantee discretion. We would meet behind closed doors, we would be frank, constructive and we would not embarrass anybody. And the dialogue with the Sherpas is necessary. We, as the civil society should employ the increasing capacity for such a dialogue.

The third principle that we have discussed in different forms today is that we are not à representation of civil society and we can not claim. Nor such group exists nor such group is going to exist. All we can do is the best voice and the best advice from the best sources.

We have already said that there should be some means for the G8 leaders should hear from the whole world about the impact of their decisions to the ordinary life. It is not to engage civil society from only G8 states. We have increasing mechanisms to involve all civil societies, we are visiting many states and we are planning to do it.

It is very important to hear the voice of the South especially. Because it is important to hear, what is the impact of the G8 decisions for the South. And it is not a situation when the NGOs from the North are speaking about the South. This is an occasion for the civil society to hear the voice directly from the South. We need a direct engagement from the South.

We’ll have some more time this afternoon to speak about where we go. But it is very important while speaking about it to remember that it was a NGO initiative to include other elements of the civil society. We have magnificent relationship with the academia, we have a growing relationship with the business community and we are planning to continue it. As to labor, the labor is not very active still. There are many components of the civil society and we have to think about it.

Expert opinion

Halter Marek

02.12.06

Halter Marek
Le College de France
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing

02.12.06

Olivier Giscard d’Estaing
COPAM, France
Mika Ohbayashi

02.12.06

Mika Ohbayashi
Institute for Sustainable Energy Poliñy
Bill Pace

02.12.06

Bill Pace
World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy
Peter I. Hajnal

01.12.06

Peter I. Hajnal
Toronto University, G8 Research Group


Contact us |  De | Rus |