World leaders gathered in a L’Aquila beaten by a fairly relentless sun for the last several days with the concrete blocks of the Summit venue baking hot to the touch. The centre is actually a training barracks for Italy’s Guardia di Finanza which has been refurbished for the Summit to highlight the plight of the region following April’s devastating earthquake and to help stimulate the local economy.
Within the venue, electric carts a little like golf buggies zip around and charge up at refresh points, many with national flags pasted to the roof to designate which delegation they belong to.
After greeting leaders in turn, flanked by statues rescued from the rubble of L’Aquila’s earthquake, Prime Minister Berlusconi hosted his counterparts at a working lunch on the subject of the world economy and later at a meeting on wider global issues.
Speaking at a press conference later, Gordon Brown said that G8 nations would not allow world temperatures to rise by more than two degrees Celsius and that they would cut their carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
Mr Brown also said that world leaders had agreed on a number of points of action, such as banking reform and tackling unemployment, to improve the situation in the global economy.
The PM’s day concluded with bilateral talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Don’t forget to check out the pictures on our Flickr set of the G8 Summit and check back tomorrow for more updates, particularly on our Twitter channel.
Finally, if you are interested in the spouse programme during the G8 event then go to our special Sarah Brown microsite to see a blog from the PM’s wife, a Twitter feed and lots of lovely pictures.
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