President Nicolas Sarkozy and his British counterpart Gordon Brown declared they were in full agreement on the need for action on the environment and the economy following a summit meeting in the Alpine town of Evian-les-Bains.

"Our two countries will work closely together," Brown said at a joint news conference with Sarkozy held in a hotel overlooking Lake Geneva.

The leaders said they would soon put forward proposals for talks to address the volatility of the oil market, with Sarkozy saying the world could no longer tolerate "yo-yo" fluctuations "from one excess to another."

Oil was trading at below 65 dollars a barrel on Monday, less than half of the 145-dollar-a-barrel peak in July last year.

"The most important commodity that the world needs is also among the most volatile and unstable," said Brown, adding that Saudi Arabia, OPEC countries as well as G8 and G20 countries would be involved in the oil price plan.

The Franco-British summit was held just two days before Group of Eight leaders gather in the quake-stricken town of L'Aquila in Italy to address the global slowdown and climate change.

On climate change, Sarkozy and Brown hope their G8 partners -- Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- will push for a deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the Copenhagen conference in December.

"We do need to have an agreement on carbon and greenhouse emissions in December," said Brown.

The 27 European Union countries have agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 -- a number that could be increased to 30 percent if other countries make commitments.

The United States, which walked away from the Kyoto protocol on climate change, has changed course under President Barack Obama and a bill before Congress would cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels.

But European leaders have said Washington's cutbacks do not go far enough.

Sarkozy stressed the need for more action on financial reform and banking regulations, saying: "We will not accept a return to the situation that we had before."

The leaders said the G8 summit in Italy this week and the G20 meeting in the US city of Pittsburgh in September were watersheds for the international community to face up to the twin challenge of global warming and recession.

"We believe that 2009 will be decisive in terms of regulation, new world governance and the fight against global warming and we are going to shake up things together," said Sarkozy.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News