Climate change deal agreed by G8 nations

By David Blair in Rusutsu, Hokkaido Island
Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 08/07/2008

The world's eight richest nations have achieved a landmark deal on climate change, promising to cut carbon emissions by "at least 50 per cent" by 2050.

The communiqué on the "environment and climate change" agreed at the G8 summit in Japan marked a softening of President George W Bush's position, who had always resisted committing the United States to reducing greenhouse gases on this scale.

Oxfam have described the target as 'tepid'
Yet campaigners stressed the deal's vague language.
The G8 has agreed a "goal" of "achieving at least a 50 per cent reduction of global emissions by 2050". But a "goal" does not amount to the binding targets that environmentalists had sought.
Moreover, there is a dispute over the base year from which a 50 per cent cut would be calculated. Campaigners say there should be a reduction from the emission levels of 1990. But there is no mention of this in the communiqué.
Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime minister and the G8's current chairman, betrayed his own confusion over this vital topic. Briefing journalists outside the Windsor Hotel on the shores of Lake Toya on Hokkaido island, where the G8 leaders were meeting, Mr Fukuda said the reduction would be from "1990 levels". A nervous aide immediately stepped forward and handed him a note. The prime minister hastily corrected himself, saying the cut would be from "present levels".

The leaders had also been under pressure to set a "mid-term" target, specifying an interim reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. Instead, the G8 pledged only that each member would "implement ambitious economy-wide mid-term goals", but failed to specify what these would be – or lay down a clear deadline.
Peter Grant, the director of Tearfund International, a campaign group, said this was a "very disappointing outcome" that demonstrated a "lack of leadership and vision".
America's position remains that India and China, the emerging giants of the global economy, must also agree to cut their carbon emissions. Mr Bush is deeply reluctant to commit the US to any goal that these countries have not endorsed. Hence the G8 communiqué stresses that climate change can only be takled by a "global response" with contributions from "all major economies".
India and China will be among eight other countries with rapidly growing economies joining the G8 leaders in Hokkaido on the final day of their summit today. Mr Bush will ask them to agree to the same goal on climate change as America.
Campaigners accuse Mr Bush of using this issue as a way of hiding America's lack of commitment.
Privately, G8 officials say that clear agreement on binding targets will have to await his successor in the White House.
John Sauven, head of Greenpeace UK, accused the G8 of "failing the world again" and said: "Thank God this was Bush's last G8."
But Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said he was "very happy" with the agreement and argued that G8 leaders were "on track" to achieve their goals on climate change.