Nuclear safety on the G8 agenda as Obama prepares for summit

The G8 meeting that President Obama will attend in France next week will include discussion of nuclear-power safety and climate change, a White House official said.

President Obama’s trip to Europe will conclude with the two-day G8 summit in Deauville, France. Japan’s nuclear reactor crisis will be a key issue on May 26, the event’s opening day.

“It will start with a discussion of the situation in Japan, expressing solidarity with the people of Japan, and a discussion of nuclear safety, nuclear power safety more generally,” said Mike Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, at a briefing Friday that previewed the trip.

The meeting comes as Japan is still reeling from the March earthquake and tsunami that crippled cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. President Obama is also slated to hold a bilateral meeting at the summit with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Climate change is also among the many items on the agenda for the summit, which includes leaders from Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., Russia, Italy and the European Union.

“There will be a discussion of the global economy and the situation of the global recovery, of risks to that global recovery, as well as a dialogue around trade and climate change and advancing those agendas,” Froman said, according to a White House transcript. A range of security issues relating to Iran, North Korea, the Middle East and terrorism are also on the wide agenda.