5.27.2008 8:07 AM

World Leaders Fail to Set Short-Term CO2 Target

No Agreement on Stepping Stones to 2050 Global Warming Goal

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By Dan Shapley

The Group of Eight, or G8, agreed to cut emissions of carbon dioxide in half by 2050, but could not come to terms on important near-term targets that would act as stepping stones to that mark, according to the Associated Press.

The opposition to setting a 2020 target came from a number of countries, chief among them the United States, but also from Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Italy and Russia.

The U.S. delegation argued that meeting targets of reducing emissions by as much as 25 to 40% by 2020 would be impossible, or crippling to the economy. Europeans, meanwhile, argued that failing to set a near-term goal would doom the globe to additional warming, and that the long-term goal would be nearly impossible to meet without progress soon.

The decision matters more acutely to some negotiators. Officials from the U.S., Canada and Russia – all opposed to 2020 CO2 targets – will join a meeting with Denmark and Norway this week to discuss the future of the Arctic. Pointedly, they would not he having discussions about ownership of Arctic territory – some of it potentially holding lucrative oil and natural gas deposits – were it not for global warming, which is rapidly melting Arctic ice.

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