Tearfund said that like the G8, the seventeen nations that form the Major Economies Forum (MEF) have been “adopting a strategy of deferral and delay”.

There was a negative response yesterday to the declaration from the Major Economies Forum which met on the sidelines of the G8 summit to discuss progress towards a global climate change deal scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

G8 leaders must demonstrate much greater political courage on climate change or they will condemn yesterday's Major Economies Forum declaration to being little more than hot air, Christian Aid has warned.

G8 leaders are in danger of squandering opportunities and plunging poor people into deeper climate chaos and poverty, the aid and development agency Tearfund has said.

As world leaders begin meeting in Italy, the aid agency World Vision has accused them of failing to honour aid pledges to the world’s poorest countries.

The G8 group of the world’s richest nations is a dinosaur which should be put out of its misery, the British anti-poverty War on Want said yesterday.

Millions in developing and developed countries face growing hardship after Britain along with European countries and the US blocked a radical UN response to the global financial crisis.

G8 inaction is contributing to hunger spiraling out of control with more than one billion people – a sixth of the world’s population – going hungry every day, ActionAid said today.

As many "responsible for the current financial meltdown" meet "behind closed doors in Washington" to discuss the future of the global economy, the World Council of Churches has challenged the legitimacy of the "G20" group.

What may be, size-wise, the largest petition ever handed in to any British Prime Minister will be presented at Number 10 Downing Street by Christian environmental campaigners tomorrow.