J8 Delegates Meet G8 Heads of State

Nine young people presented their recommendations to world leaders at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm. The young people – eight from the G8 countries and one from Tanzania -- spent 45 minutes talking to the leaders at the culmination of the week-long J8 Summit, attended by 74 young people from eighteen countries.

Introducing the J8 Summit Declaration, the young people said, “We know that tomorrow our generation will have to cope with the legacy of today. So we have united at this third Junior 8 Summit to work intensively on ways to brighten this legacy.”

On economic prospects for Africa, the children said, “We believe that education is fundamental to the bettering of the economic situation of Africa. In order to support education, we call for allocation of part of the aid pledged at the 2005 G8 summit to be directed to the building and equipping of schools and the training of teachers, as well as supporting programmes which remove the economic burden of education from families.”

On climate change and energy efficiency, the Children continued, “We call upon the G8 leaders to provide incentives, wherever possible, to companies to become more environmentally friendly through tax rebates for efficiency and tax burden for environmentally irresponsible companies. G8 countries should also pioneer and encourage other countries to join the regional Caps and Trade systems which are internationally linked. Within these systems the G8 should encourage the implementation of realistic thresholds of GHG emissions based on GDP per capita per country.”

They concluded, “We are here to make a change. We will continue to address the challenges which confront our world to the best of our abilities. In seeking to resolve these challenges, we need your support. Together it is possible to make a difference”

The four key themes addressed by the declaration are:

• Economic prospects for Africa
• HIV/AIDS
• Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
• New challenges for the Global Economy

The full declaration is available on the J8 website: http://www.j8summit.com