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US Experts Back Down On Climate Change Proposal

Watchdog bows to Bush pressure

Associated Press in Washington – Updated on Jul 13, 2008

The administration of US President George W. Bush, dismissing the recommendations of its experts, has rejected regulating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, saying it would cripple the US economy.

In a 588-page notice, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made no finding on whether global warming posed a threat to people’s health or welfare, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House.

The White House on Thursday rejected the EPA’s suggestion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act could be effective for addressing climate change. The EPA said on Friday that the law was ill-suited for dealing with global warming.

“If our nation is truly serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job,” EPA administrator Stephen Johnson said. “It is really at the feet of Congress.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Mr Bush was committed to further reductions, but that there was a “right way and a wrong way to deal with climate change”.

The wrong way was “to sharply increase gasoline prices, home heating bills and the cost of energy for American businesses”, she said. “The right way, as the president has proposed, is to invest in new technologies.”

At the just-concluded Group of Eight summit in Japan, Mr Bush and other world leaders called for a voluntary 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases worldwide by 2050, but offered no specifics on how to reach that goal. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the government had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant, but Mr Bush has opposed doing that.

Congress has not found the will to do much about the problem, either. Supporters of regulating greenhouse gases managed to get only 48 votes in the 100-member Senate last month. The House of Representatives has held several hearings on the problem but no votes on any bill addressing it. Both major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have endorsed variations of the approach rejected by the Senate.

In its document, the EPA laid out a buffet of options on how to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and factories. On Friday Mr Johnson called the proposals drafted by his staff “putting a square peg into a round hole” and said moving forward would be irresponsible.

“One point is clear: the potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land,” Mr Johnson wrote.

Attorneys general from several states called the administration’s findings inadequate.

“The time has long passed for open-ended pondering – what we need now is action,” said Attorney General Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, which initiated the Supreme Court case.

The EPA said it had encountered resistance from the agriculture, commerce, energy and transport departments, as well as the White House, which made it “impossible” to respond in a timely fashion to the Supreme Court decision.

Friday’s action caps months of often tense negotiations between EPA scientists and the White House over how to address global warming. They ended with the White House citing “extraordinary circumstances” and refusing to review the draft forwarded last month by EPA scientists.

The latest document is much more cautious than a determination made in December by the agency, which found greenhouse gases endangered public welfare. It also appears to counteract the findings of drafts released in May and last month, which found the Clean Air Act could be an effective tool for reducing greenhouse gases.

G8 Talks Offer Glimmer Of Hope For Climate Deal

Reuters in Toyako – Updated on Jul 11, 2008

If this year’s G8 summit achieved anything, it was to reinforce two truisms: the problems of the age, such as global warming, are extraordinarily complex and the Group of Eight alone cannot resolve them.

Viewed in that light, it was always unrealistic to expect the G8 to pull a rabbit out of the hat and miraculously settle the summit’s main issue – how to curb greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet to dangerously high levels.

As such, it is a good bet that next year’s meeting will rehash the same arguments on climate change that dominated the three days of talks that ended on Wednesday on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

That is especially the case as the next G8 summit, in Italy, will be a year closer to the December 2009 UN conference in Copenhagen that, negotiators hope, will agree on a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. Why show your hand before you have to?

But that does not mean this summit was a waste of time. The main job of the G8 is to send out strong political signals, not to sign deals. So Japan’s taxpayers will have to wait for Copenhagen to see whether the 60 billion yen (HK$4.36 billion) their government stumped up to stage the summit was well spent.

“An expression of strong political will from 16 leaders – this will surely be a strong force to push UN negotiations forward,” Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said.

True, the G8’s commitment to work towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 fell short of what green activists wanted. But they were never going to be satisfied.

True, G8 leaders did not set numerical interim goals that would convince voters they might be serious about meeting targets decades hence when they will be out of office.

And true, eight other big polluters invited to the last day of the talks – adding up to the 16 to which Mr Fukuda referred – did not sign up for the aspirational 2050 goal.

But politics is the art of the possible, and analysts said getting US President George W. Bush to back the mid-century target marked a tangible success for the summit host.

“You can say it’s a problem, a challenge or a reality of the international political landscape that we have, that these talks have to sometimes work on the lowest common denominator. And the lowest common denominator in the G8 is the United States,” said Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa’s environment minister.

With Washington having budged and with the G8 agreeing that it needs to set ambitious mid-term goals for emission cuts, the outline of a deal in Copenhagen is taking shape.

Rich countries would shoulder most of the burden of cutting carbon pollution, while developing countries would make less ambitious commitments and would get a lot of financial and technological aid from the west to help them meet their goals. Sketching the contours of a Copenhagen consensus is not to minimise the political obstacles that will have to be overcome.

Even in one-party states, leaders are loath to make promises that might imperil growth. “China’s central task now is to develop the economy and make life better for the people,” President Hu Jintao said. China relies on coal for more than 70 per cent of its energy.

Poorer countries have genuine concerns that they will take longer to escape poverty if they are forced to curb pollution.

“The imperative for our accelerated growth is even more urgent when we consider the disproportionate impact of climate change on us as a developing country,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.

Trading off growth today for uncertain benefits tomorrow is hard enough for any one country. When more than 100 nations are involved, the task is next to impossible: witness the seven long years of haggling in the World Trade Organisation to try to agree to a new round of tariff cuts and market-opening measures.

And the G8 is not about to wither away, with Japan, the US and Germany opposed to revamping the group’s membership.

Two-Fingered Goodbye From Bush

Agence France-Presse, The Guardian – Updated on Jul 11, 2008

US President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from the summit in Japan on Wednesday, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”

Mr Bush made the private joke in the summit’s closing session, sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the president from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.

He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would “seriously consider” a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

But green groups had protested that the summit was a missed opportunity. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the summit failed to reach a needed consensus.

“The challenge will be great and there is no great breakthrough at this particular meeting,” Mr Rudd said.

Some leaders who were not invited to the elite summit were disappointed at the outcome.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the climate deal was “another step but not definitive”, while his Dutch counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende said the results “were not those that were expected”.

Weakly Worded Climate Deal

Green Groups Unimpressed By Weakly Worded Climate Deal

Reuters in Toyako – Updated on Jul 10, 2008

Group of Eight leaders and their counterparts from developing nations patched together a deal to fight climate change yesterday, but the weakly worded deal served only to underscore the divisions between the two blocs.

There were other signs of the gap in a speech by President Hu Jintao , who said rich countries had to do more to remove barriers to farm trade, blaming such restrictions for the global food crisis.

“All countries, the developed countries in particular, should display greater sincerity in the Doha agricultural negotiations, remove trade barriers, demonstrate flexibility over such issues as the reduction of agricultural subsidies, give full consideration to the special concerns of developing members, and deliver duty-free and quota-free market access for the least developed countries,” Mr Hu said.

Farm trade is one of the most controversial issues in the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round of market-opening talks. But climate change was the most contentious topic at the G8 summit, which also tackled the crisis in Zimbabwe, worsening security in Afghanistan, and soaring food and oil prices and poverty in Africa.

“There’s been no huge breakthrough at this particular meeting, it is one step along the road,” said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who attended a climate change meeting yesterday at which the G8 leaders were joined by eight more big polluters.

The 16-member Major Economies Meeting group agreed that “deep cuts” in greenhouse gas emissions were needed to combat the global warming that is closely linked to rising food and fuel prices.

But bickering between rich and poorer countries kept most emerging economies from signing on to a goal of at least halving global emissions by 2050. Nor did the group come up with specific numbers for the interim targets they agreed advanced countries should set.

The leaders of Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United States had embraced the 2050 goal a day earlier, but stressed their countries could not do it alone.

The rich countries had to paper over deep gaps just to get their own climate change deal, with Europe and Japan urging bolder action while the US opposed promising firm targets without assurances big emerging economies will act too.

Environmentalists saw nothing to cheer in the agreement.

“It’s the stalemate we’ve had for a while,” said Kim Carstensen of the WWF conservation group. “Given the lack of willingness to move forward, particularly by the US, it hasn’t been possible to break that.”

G8 Pumps Out Misplaced Concern About Oil Price

Jake van der Kamp – Updated on Jul 10, 2008 – SCMP

G8 nations … said yesterday they would work towards a target of at least halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 …

In another statement released on the second day of the summit, the leaders expressed strong concern about … oil prices.

Post, July 9

And blah-blah-blah-ba-ba-ba-blah-blah-blah-blaaaaaah-blaaaaah-blah-blah-blaaah-blah-blah-blaaaaaaaaaah …

I could carry this on right to the end of the column to acquaint you fully with the sum total of the real achievements of the Group of Eight summit but the boss would say I was a lazy cheater and dock my paycheque for it.

It’s blah-blah because there is only one thing that can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent. This one thing is guaranteed to do the job and it is also beginning to make itself felt at last.

Our greenhouse gas emissions cutter will hugely stimulate the use of alternative energy sources. It will turn wind power, geothermal power and solar power into world’s biggest growth industries with enormous research budgets.

It will also induce consumers everywhere to adopt strict energy conservation measures. It will force them to turn off their lights every time they leave a room, make them turn up the standard room temperature in every air conditioned interior space they use and put sports utility vehicles into museums along with Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Below you can see a chart of how this miracle worker solution to pollution has exerted itself so far against a scale of emissions reduction in which the blue line represents the 50 per cent reduction mark.

Our miracle worker has not done much to help emissions reduction over most of the last 20 years but recently it has begun to assert itself quite strongly. It is now almost halfway to that 50 per cent goal established by the G8 and is likely to hit it many years before 2050.

This miracle worker, in case you hadn’t already recognised it, is a restatement of the price of oil in which the 50 per cent mark on the chart represents a price of US$300 a barrel.

Now, I could be wrong about that US$300 a barrel. It could be a lower price that gets us a 50 per cent reduction in emissions and it could be higher but it is probably somewhere around that level.

At US$300 a barrel for oil you will not be driving or riding in an SUV, you won’t turn your air conditioner down to 20 degrees, you will be using only fluorescent lights and you probably will have solar panels installed on the roof.

You will be doing all these things without any directive or any word at all from any leader of the G8. In fact, if it were left to G8 leaders to hit the target then that target would be as unblemished as an archery bulls-eye in an old folks home.

In the absence of a high oil price, I would like to see the day that an American president risks his re-election chances by telling the voters that they may no longer drive gas guzzlers.

I would like to see a Canadian prime minister pass a law that residents of Montreal may heat only two rooms per home in winter and must wear sweaters in the office. It would be an even better show if it were tried through tax targeting. That would result in a more spectacular fight than boxing any day.

Yet these are exactly the choices that the same voters will make with oil at US$300 a barrel. In fact, the only way they can be induced to make these choices is through a high oil price, with prices of other fossil fuels rising in tandem, as they are certain to do.

There is no other way. No elected political leader will ever do it through tax or other measures inflicted on people who have a vote in whether that leader remains a leader. And if the G8 countries won’t do it, then there is not the slightest chance that China and India, the world’s fastest growing energy consumers, will do it.

But will these G8 leaders recognise that a high oil price will do everything they want done without them having to blow out another puff of hot air over the microphones?

No, they will not. In their second day communique they expressed strong concern about oil prices.

They will now go home and grant oil exploration credits, wilderness oil drilling concessions, fuel cost relief measures and extra-budgetary military payments to maintain armed forces in the Middle East. In other words, they will do everything that they can do to suppress the miracle working emissions cutter.

And that’s why I say that G8 emissions reduction talk is just blah-blah-blah-ba-ba-ba-blah-blah-blah-blaaaaaah-blaaaaah-blah-blah-blaaah-blah-blah-blaaaaaaaaaah …

jake.vanderkamp@scmp.com

A Marshall Plan For Climate Change

Alex Lo – Updated on Jul 10, 2008 – SCMP

During the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, Japan, this week, US President George W. Bush warned that no global climate treaty would work without the participation of China and India. He is absolutely right. This is especially the case with the mainland, which by some measures has exceeded the US as the No1 greenhouse gas-emitting nation in the world. But Mr Bush neglects to state that the US, as the world’s most polluting country in history, must make the same commitment.

The problem is how to encourage the two emerging powers to join any post-Kyoto Protocol treaty now being negotiated by more than 190 nations, with 18 months to deadline. India and China have effectively ruled out cutting emissions in any meaningful way before they become fully industrialised. Fuel efficiency and alternative energy sources seem to be completely foreign concepts to their auto industries and car users.

The degree of resistance can be gauged by the angry reactions in India a few months ago when Mr Bush remarked, innocently but accurately, that the rising demand of India’s middle class for better and more nutritious food is pushing up prices. In this, Chinese are also guilty, as are Americans.

Fingers can always be pointed at the US, which has just 5 per cent of the world’s population but consumes a quarter of its energy. Moreover, most of the greenhouse gases causing dangerous climate change in the atmosphere today have been created by the advanced economies when they were industrialising. So, a senior Brazilian minister has likened the situation to emerging economies being invited to dessert after the rich countries have already had their full lunch but are being asked to split the whole bill. This is surely unfair; and unless it is equitably addressed, there is no way to convince developing countries to join the effort.

Speaking at about the same time as Mr Bush, however, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda outlined a solution. The rich nations should offer cash and technology to help emerging economies leapfrog to energy-efficient industrialised status. This would be an unprecedented commitment by the west and Japan, but would also serve historical justice. Japan has the experience in developing the technology since the oil shocks of the 1970s. The US and other G8 nations have the money.

Something on the order of a Marshall Plan to halt climate change is needed. It is a welcome development that the US has overcome its longtime reluctance and joined other G8 nations to back halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Now, it is in China’s own interest to join any post-Kyoto deal. Far more immediate than global warming, the mainland faces a looming environmental catastrophe. At the moment, its environmental degradation and pollution costs the economy between 8 and 12 per cent of its GDP each year. The country has 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. Millions are dying from pollution. China’s environmental threats can undermine its economic miracle, public health system, social stability and international reputation, according to Elizabeth Economy, an authority on the subject and author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenges to China’s Future.

Since 1978, China has shown its ability to adapt and change in the face of new crises. Its decision to join the World Trade Organisation stemmed partly from its need to open up and impose market discipline on its moribund financial and banking sectors.

The same or similar rationale applies to joining a post-Kyoto treaty. The central government already realises that years of unchecked growth is posing too high a cost on the nation and many of its people. By committing to a climate-treaty discipline, and with subsidies and technology transfer from the rich countries, it is in everyone’s interest to see China – and India – make this leap. Alas, the political will to commit to this approach is sadly lacking in the west and east.

Alex Lo is a senior writer at the Post

Leaders Agree On Targets For Climate

Summit reaches a ‘shared vision’ for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

Reuters in Toyako – Updated on Jul 09, 2008

G8 nations, papering over deep differences, said yesterday they would work towards a target of at least halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but emphasised they would not be able to do it alone.

In a communique released during their summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan, the Group of Eight leaders agreed that they would need to set interim goals on the way to a “shared vision” for 2050, but they gave no numerical targets.

Mention of mid-term goals was an advance from last year when the G8 agreed only to “seriously consider” a goal of halving emissions by mid-century.

But calling on countries involved in UN negotiations on climate change to also “consider and adopt” the 2050 goal satisfies the United States, which has said it cannot agree to binding targets unless big polluters such as China and India rein in their emissions, too.

Dan Price, assistant to the president for international economic affairs, described the G8 declaration on climate change as “an excellent discussion and an excellent declaration”, and he said that “significant progress” had been made.

Mr Price said the statement reflected that “the G8 alone cannot effectively address climate change, cannot effectively achieve this goal, but that contributions from all major economies are required”.

But critics outside the rich nations’ club slammed the deal. Environmental campaign group WWF said the leaders had ducked their responsibilities.

“The G8 are responsible for 62 per cent of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them the main culprit of climate change and the biggest part of the problem,” WWF said shortly after the G8 statement was issued in Toyako, Sapporo. “WWF finds it pathetic that they still duck their historic responsibility.”

The European Union and Japan had been pressing for this year’s summit to go beyond just “considering” the 2050 goal, and Brussels had wanted clear interim targets as well.

South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said he feared this year’s communique was a step backwards.

“While the statement may appear as a movement forward, we are concerned that it may, in effect, be a regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change,” Mr Van Schalkwyk said.

The UN-led talks aim to create a new framework for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and are set to conclude in Copenhagen in December next year.

The G8 comprises Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the US.

Global warming ties into other big themes such as soaring food and fuel prices being discussed at the three-day summit at a plush mountain-top hotel near Sapporo, where 21,000 police have been mobilised.

In another statement released on the second day of the summit, the leaders expressed strong concern about high food and oil prices, which they said posed risks for a global economy under serious financial strain.

The group also called for “countries with sufficient food stocks to make available a part of their surplus for countries in need, in times of significantly increasing prices and in a way not to distort trade”.

The G8 summit wraps up today with a major economies meeting, comprising the G8 and eight other big greenhouse gas-emitting countries, including India, China and Australia.

A matter of wording

The precise wording of the G8 statement on climate change was a result of much debate – and its scope remains open to interpretation. Critics say the statement leaves G8 nations too much leeway with regard to taking concrete action. The following is one of the statement’s key portions.

“We seek to share with all Parties to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] the vision of, and together with them to consider and adopt in the UNFCCC negotiations, the goal of achieving at least 50 per cent reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognising that this global challenge can only be met by a global response, in particular, by the contributions from all major economies, consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”

Midnight Oil Burns Over Climate Rift

Reuters in Toyako – Updated on Jul 08, 2008

World leaders head into the second day of the G8 summit preoccupied with soaring food and oil prices, and deeply divided over how to tackle climate change.

Senior officials from the Group of Eight rich nations were meeting late into the night in Japan to thrash out wording that would allow President George W. Bush today to put aside deep misgivings and sign on to a global goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

He is under strong pressure from Japan and Europe, but says he will not back a numerical target unless big polluters including China and India agree to binding commitments to curb their carbon pollution.

A face-saving statement that goes beyond last year’s summit pledge in Germany to “seriously consider” cuts of 50 per cent is especially important for Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who has made climate change the centrepiece of the talks.

“This is really our bottom line. I think the prime minister believes that at this summit somehow he will be able to convince President Bush to accept some kind of consensus formula,” said Japanese foreign ministry official Kazuo Kodama.

Global warming ties into other big themes at the three-day meeting, at a plush mountain-top hotel on the northern island of Hokkaido, with police protection of 21,000 officers.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who attended yesterday’s talks, said the drive to reach eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set by the UN General Assembly to reduce world poverty by 2015 was being hampered by global warming.

He urged the grouping to send a strong political signal by setting a long-term goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, backed by intermediate targets that would set market forces in train to reduce energy consumption.

“We tend to think of climate change as something in the future. It is not. We see now, most of all in Africa, that drought and changing weather patterns are compounding the challenges we face in attaining the MDGs,” Mr Ban said.

The G8 will set out its positions on climate change, aid to Africa, rising food prices and the global economy in statements to be issued today.

Citing a final draft of the G8 statement, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said the leaders would highlight risks to the world economy and label rising food and oil prices a “serious threat”.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi raised the spectre that oil, which hit a record high of US$145.85 a barrel last week, could keep climbing and renewed Italy’s call for higher margin requirements on futures markets to deter speculative buyers.

“There are fears oil prices could increase further. Some people fear they could reach US$200,” he said.

Higher prices are taking a heavy toll on the world’s poor. A World Bank study issued last week said up to 105 million people could drop below the poverty line because of food price rises, including 30 million in Africa.

“How we respond to this double jeopardy of soaring food and oil prices is a test of the global system’s commitment to help the most vulnerable,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick said.

To help cushion the blow, officials said the grouping would unveil a series of measures to help Africa, especially its farmers, and would affirm its commitment to double aid to the world’s poorest continent to US$25 billion a year by 2010.

Leaders are also set today to finalise a statement on the crisis in Zimbabwe after a violent election that extended President Robert Mugabe’s 28-year rule. G8 leaders condemned the poll yesterday. “There’s growing support for sanctions against the Mugabe regime being stepped up,” British leader Gordon Brown said.

Bush Weakness Could Impede Climate Action

Associated Press in Washington – Updated on Jul 07, 2008

The problems do not get any easier as US President George W. Bush attends his final summit with leaders of industrialised democracies.

Disputes over global warming, worries about soaring oil prices, and uncertainty about Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions pose daunting challenges for Mr Bush when he sits down with other leaders today.

There are fewer than 200 days left in his term, and Mr Bush’s presidency is a major factor hanging over the Group of Eight summit.

Atop the agenda is reaching a deal that would set targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming. But few expect major headway or concessions from Mr Bush. He insists on holding China and India, among the world’s biggest polluters, to the same emission-reduction standards as older, developed economies.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda would like to emerge with an agreement on 50 per cent overall reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Some European countries and developing nations favour establishing targets for cutting emissions by 2020.

Scientists say those targets are needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

Michael Levy, director of energy security and climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think-tank, said he did not expect breakthroughs on global warming, in part because other G8 members realise that Mr Bush’s days in office were dwindling.

The Japanese, who are driving the agenda and favour strong emission-reduction targets, “acutely understand there is going to be a different American approach to climate change in a year”, Mr Levy said.

Both presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, have argued for stronger standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions than those advocated by Mr Bush.

“We’ll have a new US president in office. The expectation is that either McCain or Obama would be a little bit more forward-leaning and we could make some more headway,” said Julianne Smith, director of the Europe programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr Bush has urged a halt in the growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 2025, but has not offered a strategy for pollution reductions or backed mandatory emission cuts.

He has supported an increase in vehicle fuel economy, a requirement for a huge increase in use of ethanol and other biofuels, and for developing clean energy technologies.

Mr Bush says a priority of the summit is not advancing new initiatives but making good on ones from previous summits, especially promises for health aid for countries in Africa and other underdeveloped nations.

“We need to show the world that the G8 can be accountable for its promises and deliver results,” Mr Bush said ahead of the summit.

“America is on track to meet our commitments. And in Japan, I’ll urge other leaders to fulfil their commitments, as well.”

Mr Bush’s trip comes amid fresh questions on the makeup of the G8 and its relevance to today’s global economy. When the gathering was first set up in the 1970s it consisted of five nations that were the world’s undisputed economic powerhouses, which were all democracies: the US, Britain, Japan, France and Germany.

The annual meetings were expected to focus on global economic issues. Canada, Italy and Russia were added later.

China, the world’s third largest economy, after the US and Japan, is not a member. Neither is India, the world’s most populous democracy and fourth-largest economy, according to a World Bank update last week that ranks countries according to their GDP in terms of purchasing power.

Brazil has a bigger economy than that of Italy and Canada, according to the World Bank report.

The economies of Spain, Mexico and South Korea are bigger than that of Canada.

Mr Bush has pushed for a wider role for these growing economies that are not G8 members, and they were invited on Wednesday to join a “major economies meeting”.

The US was expected to push for statements on government suppression in Myanmar; the increasing violence in Afghanistan from Taleban insurgents; the Middle East peace process; terrorism; and developments on nuclear programmes in North Korea and Iran, including North Korea’s recent destruction of a nuclear facility that had produced plutonium.

Surging global oil prices and slumping economies in most of the G8 countries were also were expected to be discussed, although options for action seemed to be limited.

Going Green – Search For Solutions

Going Green - Search For SolutionsCNN GOES GREEN IN SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS

“Going Green: Search for Solutions” airs June 30 – July 6

Clear The Air would like to bring to your attention that starting on the 30th of June, CNN International will air a week of special programming searching for innovative yet tangible solutions to existing environmental problems.

In “Going Green: Search for Solutions”, CNN correspondents will report live from five continents and will provide the most comprehensive assessment to date of environmental threats in five distinct areas: food and water production, living, business, transport and energy.

An online special at www.cnn.com/goinggreen features exclusive video and in-depth coverage tracking the environmental footprint left behind by citizens of the world.

Please tune in and do your bit to Clear The Air in Hong Kong.

“Going Green: Search for Solutions” airs from June 30 – July 4 during CNN Today at 7-10 am and World News Asia at 7-8pm. A 30-min special airs July 5th at 2:30-3:00pm and 1030-1100pm.

It’s on Chanel 316 on NowTV and 74 on i-Cable. Check schedule times to be sure not to miss it!