Ask the Expert: Daniel J. Weiss on the G8 Summit

What key questions will be discussed at the upcoming G8 summit?

This is President Bush's last G8 summit of his presidency. They're going to be talking about a number of issues that hit very close to home. They're going to talk about global warming, high oil prices, and high food prices. The latter is particularly plaguing the developing world.

Is there a global solution for reducing oil prices?

What the U.S. is going to talk about is creating more worldwide supply, particularly from Saudi Arabia, and perhaps from Russia as well. What we really need to do is drastically reduce demandÑthat would bring the price down. There are ways to do that that would actually benefit our economy. Let's increase our investment in transportation and mass transit. Let's build cars that go much farther on a gallon of gas, like the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. We need to reduce the number of vehicle miles travelled here in the U.S. We need to create clean, alternative fuels out of things like switchgrass, woodchips, and agricultural waste. In addition, we need to crack down on speculators. One of the reasons why oil prices have gone up 30 percent this year is that we have speculators gone wild. We need to bring all the trades onshore, and we need to make sure that speculators can't just speculate by putting a little of their own money in. In terms of worldwide oil demand, we need to help other countries address these issues as well. Interestingly, all of the G8 countries have much better fuel economy standards than the U.S.

Will the United States be receptive to calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Japan, the host of this year's G8 conference, is going to make global warming a major part of the agenda. Unfortunately, the United States is going to continue to be the skunk at the garden party. We're the only major G8 nation that has refused to accept binding emissions reductions for the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. President Bush is going to go there determined to block any sort of agreement that would commit the United States to any real binding reductions. The G8 will be glad to say "sayonara" to President Bush after this year's performance.