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G8: 2008 Summit

My Lords, the main achievement of the G8 summits during the past few years has been to try to secure the best-possible dialogue on and understanding of some of the global issues that face the nations involved. I talked about some of them in the Statement, be it climate change, the forces that are disturbing economies around the world and the action that needs to be taken. Achievement comes in two parts: the first is decisions that are made and then implemented—we have mentioned in the Statement moving forward on a number of practical issues, whether it is nets for mosquitoes that will save 600,000 lives or longer-term issues that could make a difference, such as carbon emissions. The second is the fact that the countries come together to continue that dialogue and make headway on some of the bigger issues. It is very rare on the international stage for one to be able to point to a moment of, or one thing that came out of, a particular summit, but when we look back we see that the progress made on a number of issues has been incredibly important.