[2][3] The G8+5 group was formed in 2005 when Tony Blair, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in his role as host of the 31st G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, invited the leading emerging countries to join the talks.

The hope was that this would form a stronger and more representative group that would inject fresh impetus into the trade talks at Doha, and the need to achieve a deeper cooperation on climate change.

The G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue was launched on February 24, 2006, by the (GLOBE)[4] in partnership with the Com+ alliance of communicators for sustainable development.

[6] Most recently on August 28, 2007, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in a foreign policy statement proposed that Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa should become members of G8: "The G8 can't meet for two days and the G13 for just two hours.... That doesn't seem fitting, given the power of these five emerging countries."

Nevertheless, as of 2008, a formal enlargement of the G8 is not a realistic political option, since the G8 member states have diverging positions on this issue.