G8
Group of Eight. The G8 is a forum of the largest industrialized economies. Members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia, which joined in 1998, after several years of informal participation. While the G8 was founded to address economic issues, it has increasingly focused on climate change policy and other matters over the last several years. Also of late, the annual summit has been preceded by a meeting of members' environmental ministers, who have prepared the climate change agenda for the summit.
Glossary and Abbreviations. "Post-Kyoto-International-Climate Policy". 2009 http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/19017/postkyoto_interna…
The Group of Eight (G-8) comprises the G-7 nations plus Russia. Russia began to participate in a portion of the meetings at the 1994 G-7 Summit in Naples. Russia officially became the eighth member at the 1997 Denver, Colorado, "Summit of the Eight." While Russia is a G-8 member, it does not participate in financial and economic discussions, which continue to be conducted by the G-7. Russia has the G-8's smallest economy.
Trade and Economics, Web site, US, 2005 (http://usinfo.state.gov).
