Japan not to host proposed G-8 energy meeting this year

TOKYO, Oct. 29 Kyodo - Japan has given up on hosting an energy meeting this year that was proposed in July by leaders of the Group of Eight powers, partly because of a deterioration in relations between Russia and the United States over Moscow's conflict with
Georgia, government sources said Wednesday.

Japan, which chaired the G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July, was internally
planning to organize a ministerial-level energy meeting on Nov. 16 in Tokyo.
The cancellation of the meeting could affect the course of other events related
to the G-8 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia
and the United States -- the sources said.
Due to Russia's soured ties with the United States and Europe over the conflict
with Georgia, the sources also said that Japan is finding it difficult to
arrange a meeting of farm ministers from the G-8 countries, slated for the end
of this year, to discuss measures to address rising food prices.
At the time of the Hokkaido summit, skyrocketing crude oil and food prices, and
inflationary pressure were the major economic issues.
To address the challenges, the leaders of the G-8 agreed to organize the two
meetings as a follow-up to the summit when they met in Toyako on Japan's
northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
The sources said the cancellation of the energy meeting has also been decided
in light of the unfolding financial turmoil and other changes in the
international situation since July.
Food and oil prices have become less urgent problems to be tackled as they are
on a declining trend in the past weeks in the wake of the financial meltdown,
they said.
Recently, the benchmark crude oil futures price has been less than half of its
all-time high price of nearly $150 per barrel in July.
''To enhance energy security, we propose holding an energy forum to focus on
energy efficiency and new technologies, which could also contribute to dialogue
between producers and consumers,'' said the leaders' declaration of the
Hokkaido summit.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who chaired the summit, offered
that Japan would host the energy forum by the end of this year and his
initiative was welcomed by other G-8 members at that time.
Japan will announce the cancellation of the energy forum as early as Thursday,
according to the sources.
The Japanese government was hoping that the forum would provide useful input
into a meeting of key oil producing and consuming countries in London in
mid-December.
The London oil meeting is a follow-up to an urgent oil meeting in Saudi
Arabia's Jeddah in June.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proposed that the meeting be
summit-level, but the British government is reportedly also finding it
difficult to arrange the event.