Greener Vision?

A meeting of the world's G-8 nations with big developing nations concluded yesterday on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Leaders of the G-8 nations all signed a statement subscribing to a "vision" that emissions of greenhouse gases will be cut in half by the year 2050. Thanks to stonewalling by the United States, however, no specific targets are mentioned for individual nations.

Deputy national security adviser Dan Price is quoted in USA Today stating that the present agreement represents substantial progress, since last year the G-8 merely agreed to "consider seriously" a 50% cut. This seems like splitting hairs to me, and I wonder why a national security expert is being interviewed on climate change negotiations. Our current president clearly sees the problem differently from the representatives from all of the other nations attending the G-8 summit chaired by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Andrew Revkin has an update following today's meeting of the leaders of big developing nations attending the summit on Hokkaido. The "vision" of the G-8 is that greenhouse gas emissions will be halved by the combined efforts of the developed and developing nations. The big developing nations basically said today that the G-8 need to take the first step. Today's statement also starts out by referring to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change as the global forum for climate negotiations.