G8 leaders face rising expectations as they gather for summit in Japan
RUSUTSU, Japan - The world's top industrialized nations begin their annual summit Monday confronted with demands they reinvigorate the world economy, push ahead languishing climate change talks and make good on pledges to battle poverty and hunger.
Leaders from the Group of Eight - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia - started gathering in the northern Japanese resort village of Toyako on Sunday.
They're there for three days of meetings among themselves and with heads of African nations and top economies such as China.
The summit also coincides with demanding foreign policy issues like the effort to strip North Korea of its nuclear weapons, mounting international pressure on Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, and the threat of UN Security Council sanctions on Zimbabwe over its recent one-sided presidential election.
The meeting's Japanese hosts poured 20,000 security agents and riot police into the isolated venue and surrounding towns, sealing access to the summit hotel and cloistering the 5,000 journalists covering it at Rusutsu, a resort about 30 kilometres away.
Despite the demanding agenda, concerns were high that the political uncertainties in some member countries, particularly the United States, where President Bush is 200 days away from the end of this term, could prevent decisive action.
The leaders of France, Japan and Britain also face domestic problems.
Bush on Sunday urged his fellow leaders to push forward stalled talks on world trade in the so-called Doha Round, and to pour more aid into Africa, after a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
Climate change was a top agenda item for the Toyako summit.
The UN-led talks aimed at forging a new global warming accord by the end of 2009 have stalled because of deep disagreements over what targets to set for greenhouse gas reductions, and how much developing countries like China and India should be required to participate.
As of Sunday, it was still unclear whether G8 members will be able to agree to a goal of cutting their emissions 50 per cent by 2050.
A more ambitious goal of setting nearer-term targets for 2020 were considered well beyond reach.
"I don't think they're going to do much. They're going to kick the can down the road," said Alden Meyer, a climate change expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
He suggests real progress awaits a new U.S. president in January.
Canada's environment minister is also skeptical that G8 leaders will reach firm reduction goals.
It's more likely that targets will be reached at next year's United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, said John Baird, who is part of the Canadian delegation at the G8 summit.
"I don't think we're expecting a deal will come until the United Nation auspices in Copenhagen next year," he told Canadian reporters during the trip to Japan.
"What we hope is we can get some momentum towards solid progress."
With global oil prices surging, the G8 leaders are expected to urge major oil producers to increase supplies while also calling for steps to improve energy efficiency and develop alternative sources of energy within their own economies.
It was unclear how effective a call by the G8 to boost oil production when the group doesn't include Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of crude, or any OPEC members.
The Toyako meeting was also to extend the G8's emphasis on Africa.
Eight African leaders headed to Japan, and the summit faced rising expectations that it would address key problems like food supplies, infectious diseases and economic development.
In a measure of the expectations on the group, Pope Benedict on Sunday urged the G8 to help the world's poor.
"Many voices have been raised asking (G8 leaders) to realize the commitments made at previous G8 appointments and to courageously adopt all necessary measures to conquer the plagues of extreme poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy," Benedict said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, scheduled to arrive in Japan on Monday, said the G8 leaders would discuss how they can toughen sanctions on Zimbabwe in the wake of President Robert Mugabe's widely denounced presidential election runoff victory.
"I hope that we will also get support from our African colleagues here," Merkel said in her weekly video message.
The European Union already has travel bans and an asset freeze in place on Mugabe and other senior Zimbabwean officials.
The U.S. is seeking international sanctions against Mugabe and his top aides.
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