G8: I promised you a Merkel

The G8 summit is finished and it hasn't agreed to any binding targets to reduce emissions on climate change, has pledged $60bn over three years on aid for Africa - less than the amount their citizens spend on bottled water - but most of this pledge merely backed up funding that had alread been announced, but not delivered - such as doubling aid to Africa agreed two years ago. Rich countris are already $8bn behind schedule on that. Yet the summit host, the simple mind that is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is happy.

But these climate change and aid statements wont save the world; good trade deals and policies would have more teeth in relieving poverty, but what did the G8 have to say about trade? Nothing. At.All.

Current statements are merely a snail's step in a world of giants. Or as Bob Geldof said on ABC: " How often before we get so pissed off that we refer to the poet of our times, Bob Dylan, "don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters," cause there's far more action in a parking meter than there is in those creeps who've just left here".

Max Lawson, senior policy adviser at Oxfam, said: "The headlines sound impressive but ultimately mean precious little. Instead of delivering what they promised, the G8 has tried to get the biggest possible headline number out of the smallest possible aid increase."

The G8 summit is an expensive joke and the money spent running these things could be better spent on the third world. Its all talk and no planned action. More than 24,000 people died of poverty while the summit was on.

What a farce.