Special Report: President Hu attends outreach session of G8 Summit, visits Sweden

    HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, June 6 (Xinhua) -- The Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial nations have a long way to go to honor their commitments made at the 2006 summit in St Petersburg last July, said a report released by a key international study group Wednesday.

    The G8 has complied with only 46 percent of its promises since the 2006 summit, said the G8 Research Group's annual Compliance Report.

    The G8 fulfilled fewer than half of its commitments to develop national energy efficiency action plans and clean public transport, said the report.

    While the St Petersburg summit offered little in the way of ambitious climate change initiatives, G8 countries easily complied with 89 percent of the promises they did make.

    At the same time, compliance was high with St Petersburg commitments on debt relief for Africa and support for renewable energy technologies in developing countries, both of which had 89 percent compliance scores.

    The United States, Britain and Canada have the highest compliance at 60 percent. Germany is slightly behind at 55 percent, followed by Russia at 45percent.

    France and Japan scored 40 percent, and Italy again came in last place at only 5 percent.

    All G8 countries kept fewer of their promises than they did after the 2005 Gleneagles summit, except for Russia, which, as host of its first regular summit in 2006, improved its average compliance score by about 25percent.

    "In the three areas of focus at the St Petersburg Summit, energy security, health and education, the G8 countries only register 69 percent, 41 percent and 33 percent compliance," said Laura Sunderland, senior researcher with the G8 Research Group.

    "Particularly since Germany assumed the G8 presidency in January, G8 members have increased compliance with half of their commitments," he said.

    The G8 Leaders will kick off their annual summit later Wednesday in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm, northern Germany.

    The three-day G8 summit is expected to focus on climate change, development in Africa, the Doha Round talks of the World Trade Organization, and the U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense system in Central Europe.