G8 summit of politically weak facing tough issues

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - The Group of Eight summit in Japan next week will bring together politically weak leaders to handle tough economic problems at a meeting where the Russian newcomer will be the center of curiosity.

The G8 countries are grappling with a faltering global economy and soaring oil and food prices for which they will likely produce statements of concern but little more, as short-term solutions for such intractable problems are not realistic, analysts say.

The leaders are well aware that U.S. President George W. Bush has only seven months left in office. So if consensus is elusive on thorny issues like climate change they will look ahead to dealing with the winner of the November election -- Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama.

New Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will be a center of attention as the other leaders try to discern his views and get a better understanding of the division of power between him and his predecessor Vladimir Putin, now prime minister.

The leaders from the United States, Japan, Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Canada attending the July 7-9 summit in Hokkaido mostly face slumping public opinion polls at home.

Bush's approval ratings have been hit by the unpopular Iraq war and a sluggish economy, while Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's popularity has slid over doubts about his ability to cope with a divided parliament.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stumbled from crisis to crisis since taking over a year ago, and his Labour Party faces a serious risk of defeat in an election that must be held by May 2010.

"This G8 is noteworthy, of course, because it's President Bush's last. It's also a G8 with a lot of political leaders who are pretty weak," Michael Green, senior adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.

In opinion polls, most of the G8 leaders had ratings below 40 percent. Medvedev's rating was somewhat higher, but a majority of Russians preferred Putin, Green said.

"Ironically, in this G8, the strongest political figure in the mix is the Italian prime minister," he said, referring to Silvio Berlusconi, who won a third term in office in April. Italian governments have been traditionally precarious.

G8 AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Japan has made climate change a priority, but wide gaps exist within the G8 and between rich and poor nations over how to share the burden of fighting global warming.

"Bush has moved on the issue, but it's very, very unlikely he would agree to the quantifiable targets that the Europeans insist upon," Charles Kupchan, senior fellow for Europe Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.

"He didn't do it last year and he's not going to do it this year, and it appears that both Obama and McCain are ready to do so," he said.

"So why have a fist fight with Bush when you can wait a few months and have a new American administration that has already made clear that it's prepared to move on global warming," Kupchan said.

Bush was expected to keep up the pressure on Iran and its nuclear ambitions by seeking consensus to tighten sanctions. But he will face skepticism if he tries to push any grand-scale agenda because of his lame-duck status, analysts said.

It will be Medvedev who will likely attract most interest.

"They always will pay attention to what the American president says, but this is the guy who is the new player, and there is a lot of speculation all over Europe and in the United States about just who he is, what he standing for, what role is he playing," said James Collins, director of the Russian and Eurasian program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.

U.S.-Russian relations, which cooled in recent years, will be in a holding pattern until after the new U.S. president is elected in November. McCain has favored dropping Russia from the G8 and Obama wants more diplomatic engagement with adversaries.

Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, has an economy that is faring better than most of the other G8 countries.

But the G8 is not the forum where a substantive agreement will emerge on dealing with oil prices, analysts said.

The summit will be about "a lot of damage limitation," Kupchan said. "I don't think this will be a summit that maps out an ambitious new agenda. It's one that will be cautious and it's focused on trying to keep the lid on growing global discontent." (Editing by David Storey)