Nations agree to cut emissions

ROSTOCK, Germany – Leaders of the eight largest industrial nations agreed Thursday to join forces to make “substantial” cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, but at President Bush’s insistence did not impose binding targets for the reductions.

The agreement to fight rising temperatures, reached at a summit on the Baltic Sea coast, notes the promises of European Union nations, Canada and Japan to cut emissions in half by 2050. But the United States and Russia would not be bound by that pledge.

Instead, in a concession to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other advocates of mandatory reduction goals, the agreement provides for the United States and Russia to “seriously consider” achieving similar cuts.

Merkel, host of the summit, applauded the agreement as a “huge success.” While there are no mandatory reduction targets, she said that “no one can escape this declaration,” given the gravity of the climate change issue.

Environmental groups had mixed reactions to the agreement, reached by leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations meeting at Germany’s Heiligendamm resort. Some groups called it a positive step, while others said the United States had blocked a meaningful deal.

Under the agreement, nonbinding goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be negotiated by officials from the world’s top emitting nations by the end of next year.

The G-8 language echoes a plan articulated last week in a speech by Bush, who offered to convene meetings of the world’s 15 top greenhouse gas nations. The hope is that these gatherings will result in participating nations – including China, India and other developing nations that are not G-8 members – reaching consensus on nonbinding goals for reducing global warming.

The countries would then go about reaching those goals in a manner consistent with their economic and other national interests, Bush said.

“What the United States proposed, and what I think got endorsement here, is a process whereby all the relevant countries can participate in the selection of that goal,” said Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, who briefed reporters on the agreement.

“One of the features I think all agreed to is there needs to be a long-term goal, a long-term goal to substantially reduce emissions,” Hadley added. “There are, obviously, a number of ideas as to how that should be done, (and) what that goal should be.”

Under the plan, countries would reach a new global framework by the end of 2008 for battling climate change after the U.N.-sponsored Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Bush has opposed U.S. participation in the Kyoto plan, which sets binding targets on affluent industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Critics charged that the G-8 statement did not go far enough to confront the potential catastrophe posed by global warming, despite statements by Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, proponents of specific targets, that the document was a strong outcome.

Bush “didn’t give them an inch,” said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, a Washington-based advocacy group. “The best they could get from him was a statement that their 50-percent-by-2050 emissions reduction proposal would be ‘seriously considered,’ ” Clapp said. “That’s a pretty tiny landmark.”

Other environmental advocates were more upbeat. Environmental Defense called the deal “an important step forward” in the battle against climate change.

The absence of binding targets puts pressure on American lawmakers to set them for the United States, the group said.