G-8 Summit Starts Amid More Protest

Leaders of the world’s most prosperous nations convened a three-day summit Wednesday to address endemic poverty, environmental neglect and other global challenges, even as President Bush declared his continued opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Outside the tightly guarded conference site, activists intent on disrupting the annual conclave of the Group of 8 nations scuffled with police, tied up traffic and caused some merchants to shutter their shops in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital.

The G-8 leaders -- representing Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- launched the conference with a private dinner given by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at the secluded golf resort of Gleneagles.

Some of the leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the G-8 chairman, have expressed hope that the group’s efforts would lead to meaningful progress on difficult and divisive issues such as Africa’s plight, climate change and energy consumption.

Yet even before the summit got started, Bush said he would resist any effort to impose the kind of greenhouse gas limits contained in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which the United States refused to ratify.

The Kyoto agreement requires its signatories to make significant reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants widely believed to contribute to the gradual warming of the planet, a phenomenon that could have grave long-term environmental consequences.

Although new limits were not on the summit agenda, Blair has been pushing the Bush administration to show more flexibility on the issue.

“I think there’s a better way forward,” Bush told reporters during a stop in Denmark on his way to Gleneagles. “I would call it the post-Kyoto era, where we can work together to share technologies, to control greenhouse gases as best as possible.”

That kind of approach appeared unlikely to satisfy many of the activists who have helped turn the summit into a focal point of concern about the effect of policies pursued by G-8 governments on the global economy and environment.

Last weekend, millions of people watched live TV broadcasts of simultaneous Live 8 concerts held in 10 cities to lobby for more money to fight poverty in Africa.

Shortly after arriving at Gleneagles, Bush met with rock music celebrities Bono and Bob Geldof, who organized the Live 8 events. White House officials characterized the discussion as constructive.

Bono and other musicians later held a rock concert in a nearby Edinburgh stadium, reprising for Scottish fans the concerts held during the weekend.

In recent days, tens of thousands of people have gathered in Edinburgh to participate in demonstrations. G-8 officials said they would allow only about 5,000 activists to reach the heavily secured conference site.

Although most protests have been peaceful, a group of hooded radical anarchists who had been camped at Stirling, a town northwest of Edinburgh, attacked cars and stores, and attempted to set up roadblocks and blockades. Police made scores of arrests.

After a few hours of confusion among the main group of demonstrators, thousands of marchers eventually were allowed to walk to the town of Auchterarder, a few hundred yards from the entrance to the luxury resort, but were kept under tight control by police in riot gear and armed with batons. A line of mounted police provided backup.

Nevertheless, a few protesters tried to breach the 5-mile-long steel fence enclosing the summit venue.

Marches, some authorized and some illegal, also took place in the center of Edinburgh, beneath the city’s famous castle, disrupting traffic and prompting some merchants to shutter their shops.

Shortly after noon, about 700 people marched under tight police control down Edinburgh’s main Princes Street, shouting: “What do we want? Trade justice! Now!” One participant held up a sign reading “G 8, Humanity 0.”

Diana McCaffery, 23, a National Health Service worker, said she and others turned out because “this means a lot to people. I am here because in 2005 people should not be dying of poverty and disease.”

David Hewitt, 47, a community worker from Edinburgh, said he wanted to express his opinion about the G-8 and the state of the world, to show his opposition to the war in Iraq. Asked whether he thought the world leaders would hear him, he said, “Absolutely not. They fly in and out in helicopters and don’t even know what country they’re in.”

Shortly before the summit’s opening dinner, Blair acknowledged that a consensus might not be reached on fighting global warming, but he said he opposed efforts to try to isolate the United States over the issue.

In an interview at the Gleneagles Hotel resort, Blair predicted that the disagreement between the United States and its European partners over the Kyoto treaty would not be resolved at the summit.

“It’s true that there has been a fundamental disagreement over Kyoto, and there’s no point in thinking that we are going to resolve that agreement about the treaty that is past,” Blair said. “The key thing is to try to set in place a process that allows us to get an agreement in the future.”

Bush has said he hopes the G-8 nations will endorse alternatives to mandatory limits, such as persuading the governments of the world’s emerging energy consumers to voluntarily embrace technological advances that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In what some summit observers interpreted as a positive sign, Bush signaled his willingness to accept a G-8 statement linking climate change to world energy consumption.

“Listen, I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem,” Bush said during an appearance in Copenhagen with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Bush stopped in Denmark to express appreciation for its continued support of the war in Iraq.

Vieth reported from Copenhagen and Glasgow and Daniszewski from Edinburgh.