G7 meeting focuses on terrorism, environment

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN , Germany, June 8 (UPI) -- Climate change and terrorism were the focus of a special session at the summit meeting of G7 leaders, which entered its second day Monday in southern Germany.

The leaders of seven major economic powers -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada -- are convening at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, for the annual meeting.

In a working meeting Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought an agreement on a limitation to the rise in global temperature, ahead of a landmark United Nations climate change summit in December in Paris, pressing world leaders to commit to keeping an increase in temperature no higher than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, from pre-industrial levels. She has also proposed a fund, to which G7 members would contribute, to support poorer countries impacted most by climate change.

Also present are Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, at the summit to join G7 leaders in talks on political extremism in Africa and the Middle East; each leads a nation in which militant groups, such as the Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram, are a source of conflict. In a joint statement Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande reaffirmed the need to support defenses against IS, and called for a unified government in Libya, currently the site of lawlessness and a lack of executive leadership.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Sunday an additional 125 military instructors would be sent to Iraq, at Abadi's request. Cameron called IS the world's "biggest threat."

While few breakthrough agreements were expected at the summit, the second consecutive annual meeting at which Russia was conspicuously not invited, G7 leaders in Germany have presented a unified front in proposing strategies to deal with climate change, terrorism and Russia's military inclusions in crimes and Ukraine; Sunday's meeting concentrated on methods by which economic pressure could be kept on Russia.