"The emerging markets have become a much more important part of total economic activity, but the monetary policies they are running are too easy. That is spurring inflation in these countries and that tends to push up commodities prices," said Peter Morgan, chief Asian economist at HSBC in Hong Kong.
"In the 1970s it was the developed economies that were running too easy monetary policies, so they could address it. But now they are passive receptors of the inflation burst from emerging markets."
A Major Economies Meeting on Wednesday will bring together the G8, the G5 and Indonesia, South Korea and Australia - a group that accounts for about 80 percent of the C02 emissions that cause global warming.
U.S. President George W. Bush is reluctant to sign on to targets to cut emissions without big developing countries on board.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is among those who advocate formally expanding the G8 to include China and others, although Japan for one is not keen to see its Asian rival join the club.
Sarkozy repeated the call for expansion on Saturday.
"I think it is not reasonable to continue to meet as eight to solve the big questions of the world, forgetting China - 1 billion, 300 million people - and not inviting India - 1 billion people," he told a conference in Paris.
The problems to be tackled have also become increasingly complex and intertwined, further limiting what G8 leaders can do to solve them in three days of meetings and socialising.
Efforts to reduce dependence on oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions have led many countries, the United States in particular, to turn to biofuels.
That has, in turn, helped push up food prices, as has rising demand from emerging countries and volatile weather that many attribute to climate change.
Still, for all its warts, the G8 has fans who see meaning in the process, if not its short-term results.
"The fact that it became ritualised should not detract from the fact that there is one more alternative to yelling and screaming and fighting," said Andrew Horvat, a professor at Tokyo Keizai University.
"If there was a crisis and you had to create it, you couldn't do it. For people to yawn is to miss the point.
