Global warming has been blamed for melting glaciers and rising sea levels [EPA]

Group of Eight leaders are poised to take an "important step" in fighting climate change, sources familiar with the talks say.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said on Tuesday after a morning meeting with George Bush, the US president, that she was "very satisfied" with the G8's work on the issues of climate change as well as on soaring food and oil prices.

Bush did not mention those issues in his brief comments after the bilateral talks.

Al Jazeera's Steven Cole, reporting from Hokkaido, Japan, said before the summit diplomats had said there was only a 50-50 chance of a climate change pact being reached.

But now a tentative deal has been struck on a framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

A European Union source said negotiators had reached the tentative agreement and that it would be put to their leaders on Tuesday.

"Important step"

The European Commission is "confident and optimistic" about the leaders of the world's biggest industrialised countries taking an "important step" in fighting climate change, he said.

Details of the agreement were not immediately available.

Bush wants China and India to curb emissions before he backs a firm target [Reuters]

They want Washington to agree to the 50 per cent target and the need for shorter-term action.

Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese prime minister has made climate change the centrepiece of the three-day talks at a plush mountain-top hotel on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, where 21,000 police have been mobilised to protect the leaders.

But efforts to clinch a deal have been hampered by deep differences within the G8.

Bush says he will not back a numerical target until big polluters such as China and India agree to binding commitments to curb their carbon pollution.

But China and India say it is up to the US to lead by example and commit to targets for change.

The G8 statement on climate change is also likely to highlight agreements to develop new technologies and provide funds to help poor countries limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But activists are wary of prospects for real progress until a new US president takes office next year.

"It's a little bit of a kabuki play," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Everyone is just waiting for the next president to see how that changes things."

Affecting poor

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general who attended talks on Monday with African leaders, said the drive to reach eight Millennium Development Goals set by the UN General Assembly to reduce world poverty by 2015 was being directly hampered by global warming.

The UN says efforts to fight poverty have been hampered by climate change [EPA]

The G8 will set out its positions on climate change, aid to Africa, rising food prices and the global economy in a raft of statements due to be issued later on Tuesday.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said on Monday that the leaders' communique would highlight downside risks to the world economy
and label rising food and oil prices a "serious threat".

A World Bank study issued last week said up to 105 million people could drop below the poverty line due to the leap in food prices, including 30 million in Africa.

To help cushion the blow, officials said the G8 would unveil a series of measures to help Africa, especially its farmers, and would affirm its commitment to give $50bn extra in aid by 2010, with half to go to the world's poorest continent.

African leaders had on Monday pressed G8 leaders to deliver on commitments made three years ago to double their aid to Africa and to control oil and food prices, warning the crisis threatened to aggravate an already desperate plight on the continent.