Energy ministers from 20 countries met in London on Tuesday to discuss how to tackle climate change through technology and persuade big polluters the United States, India and China to become involved in the fight, according to Reuters. "It is imperative that we find new ways to cooperate and develop a shared understanding of how the world can respond to climate change," Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett said. The summit brings the G8 group of industrialized nations alongside major developing countries including India and China. It is the first meeting after an agreement at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in July which emphasized the importance of climate-friendly technologies such as clean coal and renewable rather than binding international treaties. The United States did not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the treaty does not cover developing countries such as India and China whose carbon dioxide emissions are soaring as their economies expand. "What (British Prime Minister Tony Blair) is trying to achieve out of this...is a consensus about how we move beyond Kyoto," Blair's spokesman said this week. --more 1439 Local Time 1139 GMT
