The Make Poverty History campaign launched around the summit has been endorsed by the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict XVI, and Nelson Mandela, along with scores of others around the world.
They have something of an ally in British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who holds the G-8 presidency and hosts the three-day summit opening today at nearby Gleneagles. He has made Africa and climate change the central themes of Britain's G8 presidency, and he describes global warming as ''probably the most serious threat we face."
Blair, who has been battered domestically over his support for the Iraq war, has pressed those two issues with such zeal that the increasingly chaotic situation in Iraq has all but disappeared from the summit's agenda. Yet that by no means guarantees a summit free of acrimony.
At the heart of Blair's difficulties may be that his closest ally, President Bush, does not share the ambitious goals he has set for the summit.
Although the leaders appear ready to wipe out $40 billion worth of debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries, Bush has not accepted Blair's call for a massive increase in aid to Africa and seems unlikely to back British ideas about urgent action on climate control.
An additional complication is the lingering bad blood between Britain and European Union heavyweights France and Germany over a ferocious dispute about spending at last month's EU summit.
En route to the meeting, Bush arrived in Denmark in a light drizzle last evening and was spending the night in a royal palace on the outskirts of Copenhagen. He was greeted by Queen Margrethe and music from a fife and drum corps. Bush thanked war ally Denmark.
The summit protesters find themselves in the unusual situation of being at least theoretically in agreement with the host government, and their protests to date have not been very violent.
But some of the protesters are anarchists opposed to the G-8 in principle, and they could yet explode in anger. There are fears they may try to stop leaders from getting to the elegant Gleneagles golf resort where the summit is being held, or even try to breach the tightly protected five-mile security perimeter.
