G8 Meeting of Heads of State, Tokayo, Japan, July 7 - 9th, 2008

We will attempt to sumarise the outcome of this meeting here, watch this space.

Follow-up from Gleneagles G8 Meeting

At the G8 summit in Scotland, lots of commitments were made, and civil servants and others from the component countries were very busy during the subsequent two years bringing some of the aspirations to fruition.

The G8 meeting in Germany, Heiligendamm near Rostock 6 to 8 June 2007, continued that work.

G8 Meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, July 2005

The 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1990. There is now scientific consensus that this warming has been brought about by the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which in turn has been caused by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use.

The then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair saw climate change as "probably, long-term the single most important issue we face as a global community". For this reason climate change was a priority during the UK's G8 Presidency in 2005, along with Africa.

The UK set out three broad aims for climate change in the G8 in 2005:

• Building a solid foundation on the science. We need to further explore the relationships between greenhouse gas emissions and the associated level of climate change
• Reaching agreement on how to speed up the science, development of technology and other measures necessary to meet the threat
• Engage countries outside the G8 who have growing energy needs, such as China and India, both on how these needs can be met sustainably and how they can adapt to the impacts which are unavoidable

Links here to the G8 information pages