G20: Cannot see the wood for the trees

courtesy http://g20voice.org

The parched air and naked lights of the ExCel Centre are starting to wither the earlier exuberance. The noise has lowered to a hum and Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is sitting comfortably with the blog table writers – without a scrum, or indeed much of a scramble for comment.

This side of the Miliband wunderkind duo (ever thought what Sunday lunch must be round their house?) is trying to sound convincing as he sits in the hole the G20 has dug him, spinning words like a dervish.

Apparently the summit communiqué (which will tell us what has been agreed) might appear to say nothing much of importance about climate change, he insists.

But what we have to remember – and I paraphrase – is that it only looks like nothing because we are all campaigning on the issue.

If you look at it from the outside, he says, with a big enthusiastic smile, it really is something. Well, that’s OK then.

The fact that the G20 (probably due to blocking tactics by emerging economies and others) isn’t willing to do more than reference the UN Copenhagen talks in December, is fine, obviously.

In fact it’s awfully close to our ask for a green new deal, I’d say.

In fact referencing Copenhagen in the communiqué is so close to putting in place the beginnings of a low carbon economy that respects environmental and human sustainability, I don’t even know why I’m blogging about it!

In his earlier press conference, Miliband mentioned he’d dined with HRH The Queen at Buckingham Palace last night. He wasn’t just name-dropping, he mentioned that he and several G20 leaders had agreed, over the vol au vents, to set up a forestry group.

In light of his reflections on the progress made on climate change here at the G20, I’d say he can’t see the wood for the trees.

So the rumour mills are grinding away in the press room and other super news from the talks may or may not include the following: issues of taxation and tax havens have been square-bracketed in the negotiating text – that means no one can agree on them.

Sometimes there is an eleventh hour decision, sometimes a very poor compromise, sometimes nothing. A little bird says the leaders may say that in the future a blacklist of tax havens might be thought about.

Our partners CIDSE say that blacklisting tax havens will do little to return the millions of Euros that have been illegally taken out of developing countries and deposited in secret European bank accounts.

In a press release today they state that in 2006, 645-800bn Euros disappeared from developing countries through illicit financial flows.

A good way to illustrate this “disappearing” money is through the trading of bananas: a multinational company buys a banana for 13 cents in a developing country.

It then ships it through a fictional circuit of tax havens where value is added for non-existing services. The banana then reappears at the wholesaler in Europe for 60 cents. The multinational company gains 47 cents without paying any taxes.

Transparency of payments and tax is vital if the developing world is to ever have a chance of justice from economic systems. A global code of conduct needs to be put in place with full cooperation from all countries.

Anything else would be bananas.

Posted by PascaleP