MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

G8 “shared vision” on emissions reduction “highly ambiguous”

Leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan offered some hope on climate change with the announcement of a highly ambiguous “shared vision” to halve global CO2 emissions by 2050.

The deal, worked out after tense all-night talks, was immediately condemned by environmentalists who say it does not go far enough, but Group of Eight (G8) host Japan hailed it as a milestone. "This is a very important and significant step" said Japanese government spokesman Koji Tsuruoka. "The world must now take this agreement forward". Japan said it wanted a cut of 60-80% in emissions by mid-century going into the three-day G8 summit. Britain and the EU have already pledged cuts of 20% from 1990 levels by 2020, but the US has so far rejected such demands. Climate change specialists want steeper cuts of 25-40% by 2020 and labeled the deal as "a fudge". "We need meaningful, binding targets, not fine words," said Daniel Mittler, spokesman for Greenpeace International. "This agreement looks promising but it is full of weasel words." Charity group Oxfam said the deal gave the world a 50/50 chance of climate meltdown. "At this rate, by 2050 the world will be cooked and the G8 leaders will be long forgotten". The draft communiqué says the G8 countries "seek to share the goal of achieving at least 50% reduction by 2050", an advance on the wording of last year's document, which promised only to "seriously consider" the move. However, it sidestepped several crucial but contentious issues, including the base year for pledges to slash greenhouse gases and specific midterm targets for cuts. Climate change campaigners believe the 2050 target is worthless without a tighter timetable to tackle the problem. Many said the deal was a retreat from last year's UN climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, which committed to a midterm goal of 25-40%. Fudging on the starting date for cuts also had many observers scratching their heads. Britain and other EU members believe that any agreement on climate change should abide by a pledge made under the Kyoto climate protocol to begin from 1990. Japan's prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, said however, that the baseline for cuts was 2008, a statement later apparently contradicted by spokesman Mr Tsuruoka. "The issue of baselines was not discussed" he insisted. "These discussions should be taken up by the UN." On day two of the summit, the G8 leaders - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States - also discussed the gathering economic storm, dodging the word "recession" but noting that the world was "facing uncertainty, and downside risks persist". A statement released after the morning sessions expressed "serious concern" at rocketing global prices for food and fuel, and called for more investment in oil production, new technologies and alternative energies. The summit also reaffirmed pledges of 50 billion US dollars extra in annual aid to poorer countries by the end of the decade, including 25 billion to Africa.