OSAKA — With oil hovering at around $130 a barrel and pressure growing on the world's major greenhouse gas emitters to forge a new climate change treaty from 2012, global energy security and fast-tracking "clean and green" alternatives to fossil fuels are expected to dominate this weekend's Group of Eight energy minister meeting in Aomori.

"Japan has the world's highest renewable energy technologies. At the G8 energy ministers' meeting, we hope to reconfirm cooperation for the development and introduction of revolutionary new alternate energy technologies by developed countries," trade minister Akira Amari said at a press conference last week.

Like the highly public, G20-sponsored meeting on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development that was held in March in Chiba and drew former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the less prominent ministers gathering in Aomori will focus on new nonfossil-fuel technologies as a way to combat climate change and reduce the world's appetite for oil.