G8 Agrees to Cut Carbon Emissions by Half

Leaders of the world's advanced economies have committed to a long-termgoal of slashing their emissions of carbon blamed for global warming. Officials say the plan is a first step toward building consensus butactivist groups and at least one African leader say the declaration isempty. VOA's Kurt Achin has more from northern Japan, where theleaders are gathering.

After a working lunch of the so-called"G8" leaders in Toyako, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announceda new long-term goal on the issue of global climate change.

He says the G8 countries have agreed to cut their carbon emissions in half by the year 2050.

The goal is the highlight of an 18-point declaration the leaders released during the second day of their three-day summit.

Withinhours, South Africa's environment minister criticized the statement asan "empty slogan" for its lack of specifics. The statement is alsogetting a chilly reception from environmental activists like BenWikler, of the group Avaaz.org.

"The G8 countries blew it," saidWikler. "The language the G8 countries used to describe their visioncould not have been murkier."

Several key elements of the G8climate goals have been left open to interpretation by membercountries. The 50-percent reduction is not indexed to any specificbase year. Members can choose to halve their emissions based on thisyear's levels, or based on a more ambitious 1990 pollution level.

Theagreement also leaves out any specific mention of targets for medium orshort-term carbon-emission reductions, instead urging members toformulate such goals on a nation-by-nation basis.

Thedirector-general for Global Issues with Japan's Foreign Ministry,Ambassador Koji Tsuruoka, briefed reporters on Tuesday's discussionamong the leaders. He says the agreement is designed to be broad, andlegally non-binding.

"This is more of a political vision," said Tsuruoka. "The G8 as a whole is trying to engage the rest of the world."

Specifically,the leaders hope to engage major emerging economies like China andIndia. Experts fear their booming growth will be accompanied by sharprises in carbon emissions. Several G8 leaders, including PresidentBush, have said any climate agreement without emerging economies onboard is destined to fail.

G8 leaders say they will discuss theclimate goals with leaders of emerging powers in meetings scheduled forWednesday. Their talks are expected to set a framework for a U.N.-ledgathering next year that aims for a global agreement on climate change.