八国首脑高峰会议即将在德国举行。气候变化将成为本次会议最紧迫，最具争议的焦点话题之一。峰会上，八个工业大国将就如何处理全球变暖问题寻求一个世界性的解决方案，会议很可能修改《京都议定书》中关于对35个国家2012年前温室气体排放量的规定。

CLIMATE CHANGE

CNN ANCHOR: Hello again. It's the eve of this year's G8 summit in Germany where climate change will be one of the most pressing and controversial issues on the table. The summit of the world's top eight industrial nations could pave the way for a world deal on how to tackle global warming, potentially replacing the Kyoto protocol which set global emission targets for thirty five nations until 2012. Meanwhile, the report out today suggests that global concerns about climate change have more than doubled in the past six months. Well I'm joined now by one of the contributors to that report. Max Boykoff is a professor at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment. Max, thanks for being with us. Now according to this survey, it's good news that people seem to be wising up, perhaps bad news they don't seem to want to take a great deal of personal responsibility for the problem, they want a lead from governments. Are they going to get it?

MAX BOYKOFF: Well that's an interesting way of putting it. I do think that people are feeling as though the change needs to come in multiple fronts. I think that the way that it's been framed in the past has been a lot of this pro individualism that we need to reduce our own emissions in our households, but what people are saying in this most recent poll is that change needs to be lead from government in a form of mandatory regulations of business, in the form of incentives for good behavior and also in the form of funding for new technologies and for the research. So on the eve of the G8 summit there is a good opportunity I think for the world leaders to have an assessment of this voice of their constituents.

CNN ANCHOR: Now you saw from your survey and the numbers of the people that you looked at that from the big fives, if you like, you know there has been an increasing concern, but interestingly from the other countries like what, the other plus five, if you like, Brazil, India, Mexico, China, they are also lower than the big five but rising more quickly in the awareness, is that significant?

MAX BOYKOFF: I think that is significant, there has often been this mythology that the, that the plus five nations, the developing nations as they call them, these nations are looking to other governments to take action, or that they're looking to just join up in the second phase of what they called the Kyoto protocol or other UN action. But what this survey is saying is that the people in these governments are calling for action from their own governments and I think that that is a significant shift in this public concern.

CNN ANCHOR: But never the less, climate change has been in the news for a long time now. It's hammered home virtually every day on bulletins, news papers, and magazines, certainly here in Britain, in US to a certain extent, in Germany, those figures shouldn't be in the thirties they should be in the seventies, shouldn't you, shouldn't they, About people being worried about global warming and climate change?

MAX BOYKOFF: One might think that. I mean the way that the question was posed was to choose the issues that are concerning you most and the top three consistently always been health, economy and job security. Now global warming has moved up into forth place just behind that displacing terrorism, displacing war, displacing political stability. So beyond the holy trinity of the three that, the three concerns that have consistently been on the minds of the global public if you will, global warming has gone up tremendously and that has been more than a two fold increase.

CNN ANCHOR: We also need to take a lead presumably therefore from business not just leaders. But a very worrying survey in the Financial Times today, that climate change is bottom of the priority list of Britain's largest companies. What do you say about that? I mean what should business be doing in conjunction with world leaders of the G8?

MAX BOYKOFF: Yes I am very, I am familiar with that report that came out and I would say within the report, business leaders could possibly reassess based on, based on our survey figures, that this may need to be something that's up there, at least on their agenda. But they have said within that report that the businesses that are concerned and that are eager to take action wants some kind of mandatory, across the board regulation, rather than a bit of the patch work that's been exhibited through more voluntary and individual commitment.

CNN ANCHOR: Well its strong leadership then, that's the key, that is the key. Max Boykoff, thank you very much indeed. I'm sure we can talk about this and we will talk about this.