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Washington (pte056/09.06.2005/17:48) - The heads of the science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US issued a statement this week about the 'clear and increasing' threat of global climate change. The statement comes less than a month ahead of the G8 economic summit in Gleneagles, UK http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/nation/g8.html .
A section from the statement says: "The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems." Human activity is likely to have caused recent warming, the statement adds.
Talks between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair in Washington DC this week involved the G8 summit agenda and global warming. The British prime minister and the American president issued a joint statement on the matter: http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf.
Thus far President Bush has been sceptical about global warming, and his administration has refused to sign the Kyoto protocol. However, Bush said that climate change was a "major long-term problem" and mentioned that the United States has been researching hydrogen-powered cars and low-pollution coal as moves to help combat it.
Blair is intent on raising the threats of global warming at the G8 summit.
"We need to be thinking about how we move beyond a situation where there are huge emissions of greenhouse gases from present energy consumption," he said.
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