Leaders arrive for G8 summit

Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations are gathering in Germany today for their annual summit.

The meeting, in Heiligendamm on the Baltic coast, has already been the subject of violent protests.

Weekend rioting in nearby Rostock was called Germany's worst in decades as anti-globalisation protesters hurled rocks and bottles at police.

Chief among the summit topics is climate change - and the leaders will have to overcome major differences, particularly between the United States and European Union.

US President George Bush, was an early arrival, with Air Force One landing in a cloud of spray on a wet runway in Rostock. Several hundred protesters demonstrated nearby, some carrying red banners with the communist hammer and sickle, others with banners reading "G8: Warmongers".

Bush is to meet today - before the summit begins - with Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has insisted she would like to reach agreement with the other seven G8 leaders on having the United Nations oversee the establishment of a future pact on curbing global warming.

In Berlin, Bush advisers told reporters the US president is eager to find some common ground with Merkel on climate change.

Despite differences between the US and German proposals, there "is more agreement than disagreement", Jim Connaughton and Dave McCormick said.

McCormick said Bush spoke with Merkel last week and told her he agreed that any follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol must be handled within a UN framework, a key Merkel demand.

Merkel also plans to meet other leaders individually before the summit's official opening this evening, and began with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a Japan-EU summit in Berlin yesterday.

"We agree that we need a reduction target under which we say that we want to halve, or even more than halve, CO2 emissions by the middle of the century," Merkel said after the meeting.

Abe noted that "we naturally cannot neglect energy stability and economic growth in solving climate change".

As for the hoped-for 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, he said that should be measured "from the current point in time".

Talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled.

But scepticism was evident. A gap remains between Merkel's insistence on binding reductions and Bush's plan to have top polluters set an overall goal but decide themselves how much to do.

"No further meetings are necessary if Bush wants to agree (on) climate targets with 'major emitters'," said Daniel Mittler, an international climate policy expert with Greenpeace. "Bush should simply sign up to what is necessary this week: Halving global emissions by 2050, compared to 1990 levels."

But a top German official said the fact that the US and other countries have recently made announcements on combating climate change is a good sign.

"We welcome the fact that they're all being issued in the run-up to our summit," he said. "I think it can be seen as a success of the summit even before it starts."

Sarkozy and Abe will be making their first appearances at a major global event.

The summit also marks a milestone for Blair, who is stepping down on June 27 after more than 10 years as prime minister.