G8: India and China tell rich nations to lead greenhouse gas curbs

Richard Lloyd Parry and Philip Webster at Lake Toya, Japan

India and China rejected the Group of Eight's declaration on climate change yesterday as leaders of the developing world demanded that rich countries should take a stronger lead on preventing global warming.
On the last day of their summit in Japan leaders of the G8 met their counterparts from emerging economic powers in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but failed to reach a collective agreement on reducing the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Their joint statement contained no numerical targets, as developing nations accused the rich countries of not doing enough.
“This must change,” Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, said. “You must all show the leadership that you have always promised by taking and then delivering truly significant greenhouse gas reductions.”
On Tuesday the G8 leaders issued their own communiqué on climate change, setting out the “vision” of a 50per cent cut in greenhouse gases by 2050. European countries, including Britain, favour an ambitious medium- term goal for reductions to be achieved by the year 2020. But Japan, Canada and the US refused to agree to such a target, insisting that India and China must take their share of responsibility.

Developing nations, which have taken part in meetings on the sidelines of the main summit, say that the rich nations must bear the burden of cutting emissions, since it is the vastly greater carbon emissions from the industrialised world that have caused the global warming crisis.
“Developed countries should make explicit commitments to continue to take the lead in emissions reduction,” Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, told the Major Economies Meeting (MEM), a gathering of 16 leaders held on the fringes of the G8 yesterday.
The G8 summit concluded on a light-hearted note, as President Bush bade farewell to world leaders with the words: “Goodbye from the world's greatest polluter”.
The other statesmen laughed, at first nervously, and then more enthusiastically when they realised Mr Bush was making a joke, mocking America's reputation on global warming.