(Part 2 of 3)

WASHINGTON, June 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a transcript of remarks by the President on the G8 Summit (Part 2 of 3):

The best way to help nations develop while limiting pollution and improving public health is to promote technologies for generating energy that are clean, affordable and secure. Some have suggested the best solution to environmental challenges and climate change is to oppose development and put the world on an energy diet. But at this moment, about two billion people have no access to any form of modern energy. Blocking that access would condemn them to permanent poverty, disease, high infant mortality, polluted water and polluted air.

We're taking a better approach. In the last three years, the United States has launched a series of initiatives to help developing countries adopt new energy sources, from cleaner use of coal to hydrogen vehicles, to solar and wind power, to the production of clean-burning methane, to less-polluting power plants. And we continue to look for more opportunities to deepen our partnerships with developing nations. The whole world benefits when developing nations have the best and latest energy technologies.

Third, overcoming extreme poverty will require lifting a burden of debt that we know poor nations cannot repay. Unending debt payments have fewer resources for governments to spend on the needs of their people and make it impossible to join the global economy as a full participant. Zambia, for example, is spending more on debt service than the government's entire budget for health and education. Last year, poor nations owed $7 billion in debt payments to creditors. This burden is hurting people in desperate need and this burden must be lifted.

In 2001, I challenged the World Bank to give 50 percent of its aid to poor countries in grants instead of loans. And the bank has moved steadily closer to that goal. With the leadership of Great Britain and the United States, the G8 countries are urging cancellation of $40 billion in debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations, including 14 nations in Africa. (Applause.) Twenty more countries can qualify for this debt forgiveness in the future with good government and sound economic policies. We're determined not only to relieve debt, but to erase it, so nations in need can face the future with a clean slate.

(Applause.)

Fourth, overcoming extreme poverty will require greater trade. While aid and debt relief can create better conditions for development, it is trade that provides the engine for development. (Applause.) Only 30 years ago, South Korea's per capita GDP was equal to that of many African countries. Thanks to export-led growth, South Korea is as rich as many European countries. This example can be multiplied throughout the world and lift great numbers of people out of poverty.

The developing world stands to gain the most from an open trading system. Historically, developing nations that open themselves to trade grow at a rate several times higher than countries that protect -- that practice protectionism. The poor of the world do not experience trade as globalization. They experience trade as running water and electric power and decent housing, broader education and better health care for their families. (Applause.)

Too many nations have been cut off from the economic progress of our time, and we must expand the circle of trade to include them. Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which has reduced barriers to trade, U.S. exports to sub-Sahara Africa increased 25 percent last year. And America's imports from AGOA countries rose 88 percent. Now we must take the next large step: expanding the entire global trading system through the Doha negotiations. The World Bank estimates that completing these negotiations could add $350 billion annually to developing countries' incomes, and lift 140 million people out of poverty.

The Doha negotiations are the most practical and important anti- poverty initiative in the world, and we must bring them to a prompt and successful conclusion. (Applause.)

Fifth, overcoming extreme poverty will require an atmosphere of peace, achieved in some cases by effective active military forces that can end terrible conflicts. Recent wars -- recent history shows how wars and internal conflicts can stop the development of whole nations. But we're seeing progress. Tens of thousands of refugees who fled war are returning home in places such as Liberia and Sierra Leone and Burundi. We can add to this progress. Over the next five years, America will provide training for more than 40,000 African peacekeepers as part of a broader initiative by the G8 countries.

We will help African forces to preserve justice and order on the African continent.

We're strongly committed to peace for all the peoples of Sudan. American mediation was critical to ending a 20-year civil war between north and south, and we're working to fully implement the comprehensive peace agreement signed last January. Yet the violence in Darfur region is clearly genocide. The human cost is beyond calculation. In the short-term, more troops are needed to protect the innocent, and nations of the African Union are stepping forward to provide them. By September, the African Union mission in Sudan will grow from 2,700 to 7,700 personnel. In a NATO operation next month, the United States military will airlift more than 1,000 Rwandan troops.

We will support the construction of additional 16 base camps over the next two months, and we will provide communications and vehicle maintenance for the entire force.

In the long run, the tragedy in western Sudan requires a settlement between the government and the rebels. And our message is clear: All sides must control their forces, end the killing, and negotiate the peace of a suffering land. (Applause.)

Finally, overcoming extreme poverty will require humanitarian aid that focuses on results, not merely on inputs and other flawed measures of compassion. True compassion is measured by real improvements in the lives of men, women and children. And that is the goal and that is the focus of American policy.

Aid from America will help avert a famine this year in the Horn of Africa. All told, nearly 60 percent of global food aid to the continent of Africa comes from the United States, and Americans are proud to give that aid. (Applause.)

And since 2003, our country has undertaken a major effort against HIV/AIDS, the largest health initiative in history to combat a specific disease. Across Africa, we're working with local health officials to expand AIDS testing facilities, to train and support doctors and nurses and counselors, to upgrade clinics and hospitals, to care for children orphaned by AIDS, and to support pastors and priests and others who are teaching young people the values of respect and responsibility and prevention. We're making life-giving treatment possible for more than 230,000 adults and children in Africa. We're determined to reach our five-year goal of treating two million.