G-8 talks on climate a success — or failure?

updated 12:31 p.m. ET July 9, 2008

RUSUTSU, Japan - President Bush and the U.N.'s top climate official on Wednesday had polar-opposite views on what exactly transpired at the Group of Eight summit.

Bush hailed Tuesday's move by G-8 leaders to coalesce behind a strategy for a global climate-change accord, saying at the end of the summit that "significant progress" was made.

Yvo de Boer, who heads the U.N.-led global negotiations to forge a new climate change treaty, saw it differently.

"I don't find the outcome very significant," he told The Associated Press in telephone interview from his home in the Netherlands.

De Boer said the summit's vague pledge to work toward slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050 mentioned no baseline, did not appear to be legally binding and was open to vastly different interpretations. He praised China's President Hu Jintao for acknowledging that developing countries must act on climate change even if Beijing rejects specific national targets.

Other critics argued the goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 50 percent did not go far enough and amounted to political window-dressing.

"To be meaningful and credible, a long-term goal must have a base year, it must be underpinned by ambitious midterm targets and actions," said Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, who called the G-8 statement an "empty slogan."

Video   G-8 stand explained July 8: NBC's Anne Thompson explains the goal set by G-8 leaders to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Nightly News

It was Bush's final summit with leaders of the world's richest democracies, and he gave reporters a sunny view of its accomplishments before flying home to Washington.

His main demand on a climate change accord is that eight poor but energy-guzzling nations be included in some requirements along with the major industrialized democracies that make up the Group of Eight. "That's what took place today," Bush said, referring to the embrace of this idea by fellow G-8 leaders.

The G-8 nations are the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia.

Host Japan had prepared for more than a year to win support for the 2050 target, though the agreement on that goal fell far short of ambitions by some European countries and developing nations eager to see wealthy nations take on shorter term targets for 2020 in the run-up to the conclusion of the U.N. talks next year.

"The success or failure of the whole accord will be decided by the question of the midterm targets," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "Unless the industrial nations set ambitious midterm targets, the developing nations will not set any targets at all."

Developing nations counter
But the five key developing nations at an expanded meeting on climate on the sidelines of the summit — China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa — issued a statement rejecting the notion that all share in the 50-percent reduction goal. "It is essential that developed countries take the lead in achieving ambitious and absolute greenhouse gas emissions reductions," said the statement.

"We're not in complete convergence yet," acknowledged Jim Connaughton, one of Bush's top environmental advisers.

It was, nevertheless, the first time that the G-8 heads of state sat down to talk about global warming at the same table with the eight emerging economies that, with them, are responsible for spewing 80 percent of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Bush heartily backed the broad emissions-reduction goal stated by his summit partners. This position represents quite a progression for a president who in his first term disputed scientists' assertions about global warming.

"We made clear, and the other nations agreed, that they must also participate in an ambitious goal," Bush said, "with an interim goal, with interim plans to enable the world to successfully address climate change. And we made significant progress toward a comprehensive approach."

In a statement that Bush read to reporters here, he reiterated his position that further progress will likely hinge on further development of clean energy technologies. Developing nations, he said, will need assistance so they can become "good stewards of the environment."

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