TOYAKO (Japan), July 7: World leaders head into the second day of the annual G8 summit preoccupied by soaring food and oil prices and deeply divided over how to tackle climate change.

Senior officials from the Group of Eight rich nations were meeting late into the night in Japan to thrash out wording that would allow President George W. Bush on Tuesday to put aside deep misgivings and sign on to a global goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century.

Bush is under strong pressure from Japan and Europe but says he will not back a numerical target unless big polluters, including China and India, agree to binding commitments to curb their carbon pollution.

A face-saving statement that goes beyond last year’s summit pledge in Germany to “seriously consider” cuts of 50 per cent by 2050 is especially important for Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who has made climate change the centrepiece of the talks.

“This is really our bottom line. I think the prime minister believes that at this summit somehow he will be able to convince President Bush to accept some kind of consensus formula,” said Japanese Foreign Ministry official Kazuo Kodama.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended Monday’s talks being held at a plush mountain-top hotel on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, said the drive to reach eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN General Assembly to reduce world poverty by 2015 was being directly hampered by global warming.

He urged the G8 to send a strong political signal by setting a long-term goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, backed by intermediate targets that would set market forces in train to reduce energy consumption.

“We tend to think of climate change as something in the future. It is not. We see now, most of all in Africa, that drought and changing weather patterns are compounding the challenges we face in attaining the MDGs,” Ban said.

Food prices issue: The G8 will set out its positions on climate change, aid to Africa, rising food prices and the global economy in a raft of statements due to be issued on Tuesday.Citing a final draft of the G8 communiqué, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said the leaders would highlight downside risks to the world economy and label rising food and oil prices a “serious threat”.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi raised the spectre that oil, which hit a record high of $145.85 a barrel last week, could keep climbing and renewed Italy’s call for higher margin requirements on futures markets to deter speculative buyers.

“There are fears oil prices could increase further. Some people fear they could reach $200,” Berlusconi told reporters.

“How we respond to this double jeopardy of soaring food and oil prices is a test of the global system’s commitment to help the most vulnerable,” World Bank president Robert Zoellick said.

“It is a test we cannot afford to fail,” he told reporters.—Reuters