G8 COUNTDOWN: Academics talk going green in light of G8.

SAPPORO (Kyodo), July 1, 2008 - The G8 University Summit began Monday discussing ways universities can help achieve eco-friendly and sustainable global development.

The two-day gathering at a Sapporo hotel, drawing officials of 34 universities from 14 countries, including the Group of Eight major powers plus Tokyo-based United Nations University, marks the first time such representatives from various countries have held talks to coincide with the regular G8 summit.

The outcome of the discussions will be presented as the Sapporo Sustainability Declaration to next week’s G8 summit.

The university summit aims for academia to contribute to international efforts to address global environmental problems and to promote education for sustainable global development in plenary and sectional sessions.

“Global environment problems will not be solved by fields of expertise alone. It is necessary to combine advanced specialization and comprehensive education,” Hiroshi Saeki, president of Hokkaido University, said in a plenary session Monday.

Yuichiro Anzai, president of Keio University in Tokyo, stressed the importance of fostering leaders who are able to forge the future of the world.

The 14 countries include the G8 nations — the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia — as well as China and South Korea plus Australia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and the Tokyo-based UN University. Of the 34 universities, 14 are from Japan.

From the 14 countries listed we see that Indonesia and Mexico are missing from this year’s G8 larger circle of 16 countries.

At the G8 summit, a post-Kyoto Protocol framework to curb global warming will be among the top agenda items. The academics thus also stressed topics with application to the general theme.

as of May 21, 2008 - the participants:
Country Name of the universities URL
Canada The University of British Columbia  http://www.ubc.ca/
University of Alberta  http://www.ualberta.ca/

France Ecole Polytechnique  http://www.polytechnique.edu/
Université Paris - Sorbonne (Paris IV)  http://www.paris-sorbonne.fr/

Germany LMU Munich  http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/
RWTH Aachen University  http://www.rwth-aachen.de/

Italy Politecnico di Torino  http://www.polito.it/
Università degli Studi di Firenze  http://www.unifi.it/

Russia Far Eastern National University  http://www.fenu.ru/
Lomonosov Moscow State University  http://www.msu.ru/en/

U.K. Imperial College London  http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/
The University of Cambridge  http://www.cam.ac.uk/

U.S.A. University of California, Los Angeles  http://www.ucla.edu/
Yale University  http://www.yale.edu/

Australia The Australian National University  http://www.anu.edu.au/

Brazil University of São Paulo  http://www4.usp.br/

China Peking University  http://www.pku.edu.cn/ehomepage.htm
Tsinghua University  http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/eng/

India Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur  http://www.iitk.ac.in/
University of Delhi  http://www.du.ac.in/

Korea (Rep. of) Seoul National University  http://www.useoul.edu/

South Africa University of Johannesburg  http://www.uj.ac.za/

United Nations University  http://www.unu.edu/

The remaining 13 Japanese Universities are:

Hokkaido University  http://www.hokudai.ac.jp/en/
Tohoku University  http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/english/
The University of Tokyo  http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.html
Tokyo Institute of Technology  http://www.titech.ac.jp/home.html
Hitotsubashi University  http://www.hit-u.ac.jp/index-e.html
Nagoya University  http://www.nagoya-u.ac.jp/en/
Kyoto University  http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index-e.html
Osaka University  http://www.osaka-u.ac.jp/eng/
Kyushu University  http://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp/english/
Tokyo Metropolitan University  http://www.tmu.ac.jp/
Keio University  http://www.keio.ac.jp/index-en.html
Waseda University  http://www.waseda.jp/top/index-e.html
Doshisha University  http://www.doshisha.ac.jp/english/
Ritsumeikan University  http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/eng/

The program outlines for the June 30 - July 1, 2008 meetings can be found at:  http://g8u-summit.jp/english/program/ind…

 http://g8u-summit.jp/english/index.html states: Contributions from academia are vital to tackle challenges of the global environmental problems such as climate change, which are related to the continued existence of all humanity.

Our problem by now is that with so much innovation, this year’s G8 - supposedly addressed to the problem of Climate Change and sustainability - may turn out all frills - no substance or sustenance. I hope - I am wrong.