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World emerging economies agree on warming limit

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-10 05:53

L'AQUILA, Italy: Leaders from the five emerging economies agreed on Thursday to limit the global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but they failed to hammer out more substantial targets of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"We recognize the scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees Celsius," the leaders said in a declaration after a meeting under the format of Major Economies Forum (MEF), which brought together 17 nations including the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries and five emerging economies including China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

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Describing it as an "historic consensus," U.S. President Barack Obama said rich countries have a responsibility to take the lead on climate change.

"We agreed that the developed nations have a responsibility to take a lead," he said. "The U.S. has a historic responsibility to take the lead. In the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short in meeting its responsibilities."

Scientists warned that there would be serious climate consequences if the world temperature rises more than the threshold of 2 degrees Celsius, but Washington had been reluctant to accept the threshold of 2 degrees Celsius under the previous administration of President George W. Bush.

Despite the achievement, the five emerging economies failed to bridge their major differences on the concrete targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, leaving huge jobs to be done when world governments meet in Copenhagen, Denmark by the year end to work out a new global pact on climate change to replace the current Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

The G8 leaders agreed on Wednesday to achieve the goal of reducing global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050, pressing others to share the burden, but they failed to specify from the level of which year the emissions should be halved.

However, five emerging economies would like to see rich countries make deeper cuts by 2020, rather than a distant target by 2050. They also want developed countries to first provide financing and technology transfer to help developing world in the fight against climate change.