G-8 leaders agree to cut emissions
2050 target is 50% reduction; Plan vague on near-term goal
RUSUTSU, Japan - President Bush and leaders of the world's richest nations pledged yesterday to "move toward a low-carbon society" by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, the latest step in an evolution by a president who long played down the threat of global warming.
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The declaration by the Group of Eight - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia - is the first time that the Bush White House has publicly backed an explicit long-term target for eliminating the gases that scientists have said are warming the planet. But the agreement did not set a similar goal for cutting emissions over the next decade, and that drew sharp criticism from environmentalists, who called it a missed opportunity.
In a sense, the document represents an environmental quid pro quo. In exchange for agreeing to the "50 by 2050" language, Bush got what he has sought as his price for joining an international accord: a statement from the rest of the Group of Eight that developing nations like China and India, which have declined to accept mandatory caps on carbon emissions, must be included in any treaty.
European leaders, who have long pressed Bush to take a more aggressive stance on global warming, said the declaration could enhance efforts to reach a binding agreement to reduce emissions when negotiators meet in Copenhagen next year under UN auspices.
"This is a strong signal to citizens around the world," the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, told reporters at a news conference. "The science is clear; the economic case for action is stronger than ever. Now we need to go the extra mile to secure an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen."
The leaders of the eight industrialized countries, who gathered on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido for their annual meeting, spent months debating the language of yesterday's communique in lower-level negotiations. Critics said it was short on specifics, and that the developed as well as developing countries would need to make much sharper cuts in emissions to head off the worst effects of global warming.
The statement left unclear, for instance, whether the cuts made by 2050 would be pegged to current emissions levels, or 1990 levels, as many advocates had hoped.
A 50 percent cut from current levels would result in a less significant decrease by 2050 than Japan and European nations had envisioned under the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate agreement rejected by the United States. Kyoto had set 1990 as the baseline for future cuts. The United States emitted about 20 percent more carbon dioxide in 2007 than it did in 1990.
"It is one step forward from the US point of view, because President Bush has agreed that the United States, for the first time, must be bound by an international treaty," said Philip E. Clapp, director of the Pew Environmental Group. "But the emissions reduction goal is extremely weak; the language in the communique is almost meaningless."
The White House painted the document as a victory.
"The G-8 is giving a lot, but the G-8 is also suggesting that others need to be part of that equation," said James L. Connaughton, Bush's top adviser on environmental matters. "And that's a very important shared statement."
Bush did not speak publicly about the pact, although Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany raised the issue when she appeared briefly with the president before the document was released. Merkel, who has been pushing Bush to take a stronger stance on global warming, pronounced herself "very satisfied."
Yet already, there are signs that the document could produce a rift between rich and poor nations. South Africa's minister of environmental affairs, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, called the communique a concession to "the lowest common denominator."
Cutting emissions in half is one step in curtailing warming, climate specialists have long said, because the main greenhouse gas generated by human activities, carbon dioxide, can persist for a century or more in the atmosphere, once it is released. As long as more is being emitted than the oceans or plants can absorb, its concentration will rise. 