Rich nations and emerging powers on Wednesday declared climate change “one of the great global challenges of our time.” But they set no short-term goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with the largest developing countries demanding more action by wealthy nations before moving. The declaration grew out of an unprecedented meeting that brought together 16 nations, rich and poor, and the European Union on global warming. The session, organized by President Bush, took place here on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, where leaders of the Group of 8 pledged Tuesday to “move toward a carbon-free society” by seeking to halve worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases by 2050. But a group of the largest emerging economies, led by India and China, now the leading source of greenhouse gases, refused to sign on to that goal.PM: G8 Fails Climate Test - Alford and Shanahan, The Australian
Emerging industrial giants India and China have refused to fall into line with the richest nations on cutting greenhouse emissions, as Kevin Rudd urged the world's most powerful leaders to build a "grand new consensus" on climate change. The Prime Minister warned of "a grave danger" that next year's UN Copenhagen summit - designed to set a new global climate regime - could come to nothing unless developed and developing nations agreed on targeted CO2 reductions. In what would be a blow to Mr Rudd's ambitious plan to introduce a carbon trading scheme by 2010, he said a post-Kyoto settlement on climate change was threatened by the failure of the Hokkaido Group of Eight summit to bridge the gap between rich nations and the emerging economies on sharing the burden of cutting greenhouse emissions.G-8 Largely Ignores Economic Woes - Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
With the Group of 8 having wrapped up its summit Wednesday, it won't be long before workers take apart the large eco-building constructed here with recyclable material for the hordes of journalists covering the annual session. Soon it will be as if the building never existed. Many may feel the same way about this year's G-8 meeting. President Bush and leaders of seven of the other wealthiest nations face a triple whammy of economic woes: a global credit crunch, soaring food prices and spiraling oil costs. But in three days of tackling a range of other issues -- among them global warming, aid to Africa and Zimbabwe's election violence -- there was little in the way of fresh initiatives on how to get the world's economy back on track.Good Intentions, Vague Promises - New York Times editorial
This week’s summit meeting of major industrialized nations in Japan yielded two important firsts on global warming. For once, the Bush administration was not in full foot-dragging mode, joining in a pledge to halve global greenhouse gases by midcentury. And the big emerging nations, including China and India, agreed to long-range (if unspecified) cuts in emissions. For all that good news, summits are usually about vague promises and good intentions, and this one was no different.No G®8 Accomplishment - Washington Post editorial
The Group of Eight declaration of its commitment to a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050 could be viewed as a ho-hum event when you consider that German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought the same commitment at last year's summit and that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has called for a cut of up to 80 percent in the same period. What made the announcement Tuesday at once monumental and pathetic was that it was agreed to by President Bush. With just over six months left in office, and after seven years of denial, inaction and foot-dragging, Mr. Bush finally did what the world has been pleading with him to do.The Pain of the G-8’s Big Shrug - Nicholas Kristof, New York Times opinion
Is genocide really that bad? As President Bush and the Group of 8 leaders who are meeting in Japan again shun their responsibilities in Darfur, there is a serious argument to be made that genocide is overrated as an international concern. The G-8 leaders implicitly accept that argument, which goes like this: Genocide is regrettable, but don’t lose perspective. It is simply one of many tragedies in the world today — and a fairly modest one in terms of lives lost.