Twenty-three international businesses are calling for urgent global action to combat climate change, endorsing a package of recommendations presented to U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, host of this year's G8 Summit. Blair will be presenting his recommendations regarding climate change at the G8 Summit in July.

In January, Mr. Blair recruited a group of international business leaders to form the G8 Climate Change Roundtable at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Prime Minister asked the group to share with him their perspectives and expertise ahead of July's G8 Summit.

Following a series of expert working group meetings, the participating business leaders reconvened to present their recommendations to the Prime Minister. The group has identified a Framework for Action that will allow G8 governments and the private sector to collectively force a change in the pace and scale of climate change mitigation. The main recommendations presented to the Prime Minister today are:

• Establish a market-based framework extending to 2030, which is flexible, global in scope and sets clearly defined limits on greenhouse gas emissions and which also addresses climate change as part of an overall sustainable development agenda
  
  
• Promote low carbon technologies
  
  
• Provide support for low carbon economic development in emerging markets
  
  
• Improve performance metrics within and across national borders
  
  
• Create a practical toolkit and common framework for the implementation of effective procurement and supply chain strategies

The G8 Summit will run from July 6-8 at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland.