EMC’s Business Finance blog

he Group of Eight rich nations, with China and India, the world’s fastest-expanding major economies, vowed to boost energy efficiency, two days after oil prices posted their biggest-ever gain and deepened concerns about slowing global growth.

G-8, plus China, India and South Korea, also urged “other oil-producing countries” to intensify investment in the energy industry to keep the market “well-supplied,” according to a joint statement issued after a meeting of top energy officials in Aomori, northern Japan, today.

Crude oil leaped more than $10 to $138.54 a barrel in New York on June 6, a price that U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman described as “shocking.” The 11 nations today focused on long- term energy conservation and stopped short of asking oil producers for additional fuel to tame record prices.

“We can tackle rising energy prices by enhancing energy- conservation, accelerating a shift to alternative sources and developing technology to save fuel,” Japan’s Trade Minister Akira Amari said.

Representatives from the 11 nations attending the meeting in Aomori, a hub of Japan’s nuclear power industry, agreed to establish the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Corporation to exchange information and share conservation know- how.