G8 meeting in Japan wants a green theme
You recycle, you compost, you walk to work. But how green was your last rich country leader get-together?
It was probably not as green-themed as the upcoming G8 summit to take place in Northern Japan. Eight rich and pretty polluting countries are meeting in Toyako and Japanese organizers plan to be very eco-friendly hosts.
On the functional side of things, cops will be rolling around on Segways, toilets that use 31% less water have been designed specifically for the event, and a bunch of new hydrogen fuel cell cars from Honda will be taking delegates to and from meetings over the five days.
And if you're a world leader, you likely travelled to this G8 party by air. Well, now you can stop feeling guilty and off-set your emisssions at a booth in the international media centre. The service will calculate the emissions you produced by attending the summit, and then offer you a chance to donate money to an offsetting project involving, for example, reforestation.
With the richest countries getting together for a chat, and this being George Bush's last appearance at the annual G8 shin-dig, it's good to see some scheduled discussion on the environment as well. Alongside other important issues like African development and world economy stuff, the issue of climate change and sustainable energy will be a focus and is supposed to dominate the second day of meetings.
While this summit will likely be the greenest themed yet (even the summit's logo displays a gree leaf), it is also the most expensive, totalling a controversial half billion US dollars of Japanese taxpayer money. The media centre itself will cost about 50 million dollars US and will be all greened out with solar panels, a snow cooling system and exhibits showing off fuel cells and heat pumps. It will not, however, be the most sustainable building - there are plans to demolish the centre after the summit is over.
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