Shinzo Abe and other world leaders gathered for the G7 summit today

The Japanese prime minister warned world leaders today of a looming crisis on the scale of the 2008 credit crunch, as the heads of the Group of Seven nations disagreed on the danger to the world economy.

Shinzo Abe, who is hosting the G7 leaders for their two-day summit, presented a graph indicating that world commodity prices have recently fallen as much as they did following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the world financial crisis of 2008.

US President Barack Obama with Shinzo Abe , Japanese prime minister on the Ujibashi bridge at the Ise-Jingu Shrine today CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES

But not all the leaders present, who include David Cameron, Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, agreed with his grim assessment, according to one of his senior aides.

“G7 leaders voiced the view that emerging economies are in a severe situation,” said Hiroshige Seko, Mr Abe’s deputy chief