Science academies issue statements to inform G8 leaders on water, energy, resiliency to natural disasters

"Scientists from 15 countries are calling for a better political response to the provision of water and energy to meet the challenge of feeding a world of nine billion people within 30 years," Reuters reports. The leaders of "some of the world's leading science academies" issued several statements on Thursday "ahead of the G8 summit in the United States" as "part of the annual lobbying effort aimed at focusing the attention of world leaders on issues the scientific community regards as crucial," the news agency writes (Wickham, 5/11).

"The three so-called 'G-Science' statements say that priority should be given to finding ways of finding a coherent way of simultaneously meeting water and energy [.pdf] needs, building resilience [.pdf] to natural disasters and developing better ways of measuring greenhouse gas emissions [.pdf] in order to see if individual countries are meeting their international obligations to reduce emissions," according to BBC News. The science academies have issued similar statements for the past seven years to inform policymakers, but this year "they are targeting leaders attending not just the G8 summit but also the G20, the Rio+20 environmental summit, and other important events," the news service writes, noting, "The statements have been signed by the leaders of the national science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. (Ghosh, 5/11).