Bush Praises G8 Climate 'Progress'
George Bush, the US president, has welcomed what he said was "significant progress" on measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite criticsm that a three-day G8 summit in Japan has failed to set any specific targets or benchmarks for cuts.
"In order to address climate change, all major economies must be at the table, and that's what we had here today," Bush told reporters on Wednesday at the end of the summit on the island of Hokkaido.
He was speaking after talks earlier in the day in which G8 leaders were joined by the leaders of eight other major polluters in a 16-nation forum known as the "Major Economies Meeting".
That meeting produced a joint statement at which the 16 agreed to a "shared vision" on cutting emissions, but which notably failed to set any firm targets for cuts.
The statement has been criticised by environmental activists who say that without specific goals and benchmarks which can be measured, such agreements are largely meaningless.
"Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our time," the joint statement by the leaders of the 16 major economies said, adding that they all "recognised that deep cuts in global emissions will be necessary".
It said that all sides had agreed to "work constructively together to promote the success of the Copenhagen climate change conference", referring to the United Nations meeting scheduled for December 2009 aimed at reaching a new global treaty on reducing emissions.
Poor priority
India and China, however, refused to set specific targets for cutting emissions, saying they must put development priorities first.
Both countries argue that while their total emissions are growing fast on a per capita basis, they still lag well behind major polluters such as the US.
During Wednesday's major economies meeting, Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, said that India's top priority was to help its poor and could not even consider quantitative restrictions on emissions.
"The imperative for our accelerated growth is even more urgent when we consider the disproportionate impact of climate change on us as a developing country," Singh said, according to a transcript of his speech.