Achievements expected

"The success of the summit is whether we can make the recessions hallower and shorter than it would otherwise have been," Gordon Brown's G20 Special Envoy, Lord Malloch-Brown, said during a web chat with the public on Friday.

"The early test of the results will be whether we see a stop to the drift towards protectionism and whether we see banks lending again," he added.

Protectionism will end the benefits of the globalization, that is mutually reinforcing the cycle of job creation and falling product prices, he said.

However, the core achievement of this meeting must be the recovery of confidence, not just for investors but for all consumers and voters, said Lord Malloch-Brown, who is also British Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN.

"The G20 leaders have to convince a global constituency that they are in charge and that they know what they are doing. If they don't, they will obviously add to a sense of drift and crisis," he warned.

"There is no national recovery strategy, ultimately just a global one that our national actions need to support," he said, adding that "If we start to think and act nationally, and forget the global, we're not going to get out of this."

Sustainable consumption is the remedy

Though the G20 is not specifically intended to seek climate change solutions, it is expected to give a push to attendees toward making a commitment to a post-2012 global climate change framework, something that is to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of this year.

Bringing about recovery of the global economy, whilst maintaining sustainability, remains high on the G20 agenda. The G20 countries, especially the richer ones, have been urged to take a lead in sustainable consumption, which is regarded as a key force for fighting climate change.

The real cause of climate change is not cities themselves but high-consumption lifestyles, says a study released recently by the International Institute for Environment and Development states.

Many cities have surprisingly low per capita emissions, but what is clear is that most emissions come from the world's wealthier nations, according to Dr David Dodman, the author of the study.

"High-income countries need to take the lead in showing how a high quality of life for all individuals can be achieved without placing an unsustainable load on environmental systems," Dodman said during an interview with Xinhua.

"Now we are fighting the fire, but as the crisis passes the debate will shift to environmental and social concerns and indeed a whole discussion of how we can live in better balance with our neighbors and the world, not only between borrowing and saving nations, but also in our consumption and how we live and use non-renewable resources," Lord Malloch-Brown said.

The EU has recently agreed a 5 billion euro (US$6.8 billion) package in funding for renewable energy and broadband projects to enable an economic recovery in Europe in both a green and hi-tech approach.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2009)