Stockhom/Copenhagen  - Judged by their economic size, neither Sweden nor Denmark should have been invited to this week's Group of Eight (G8) summit in Italy. But 2009 is a special year for the duo.

Denmark - with its 5 million inhabitants - is to host a UN climate conference in December when participating countries will be asked to agree on substantial cuts in the emission of dangerous greenhouse gases, as of 2012.

Sweden is invited as current president of the European Union. Sweden with some 9 million people on July 1 took over the rotating presidency for a six-month term.

As part of efforts to help clinch a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard organized an informal meeting on Greenland last week that gathered some two dozen countries.

Present at the meeting in the town of Ilulissat - Greenlandic for iceberg - were representatives from Japan, Russia and the United States as well as big emerging economies including Brazil and India.

"For the first time, we sense consensus among participating countries that global temperatures do not increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels," Hedegaard said when summing up the meeting that ended late Friday.

Several previous meetings have been held with a similar format aimed at giving ministers and aides ample time to discuss ideas and create informal ties for larger conferences.

Hedegaard said the group would "continue" its talks, but underlined the need that "heads of state and government provide clear guidance," citing the G8 summit that opens Wednesday as an opportunity.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has also underlined that a main priority for the Swedish EU presidency is to clinch an international climate treaty and keep a unified stance within the EU.

A sticking point on climate talks is that the 27-nation bloc uses 1990 as its "base year" for calculating cuts, while the United States and Japan oppose this since they would then be forced to make greater cuts.(dpa)