RUSUTSU, JAPAN — For the first time, the Bush administration on Tuesday joined other wealthy nations in an offer to halve their global warming emissions by mid-century.
But the Group of 8 leading industrialized nations failed today to secure the support of China, India and other fast-rising countries for the declaration on greenhouse gases, suggesting continued struggles between the two groups in forging a new international treaty on global warming.
President Bush, prodded by Japan and other G-8 nations, agreed to the target of a 50% cut in emissions by 2050. The declaration made it clear, however, that any binding treaty would have to apply to developed and developing nations alike.
Early today, after meeting on the last day of the G-8 summit here, the leaders of the G-8 and eight other countries invited to the gathering issued a joint statement indicating that all the parties agreed there was a need for a long-term target for emissions reductions. But China, India and three other emerging nations, known as the Group of 5, did not agree to the specific targets set out by Bush and the other leaders.
Analysts said those five developing countries were not willing to go that far unless the United States and other G-8 nations -- which they hold responsible for the accumulation of carbon levels in the atmosphere over decades -- made specific and deeper commitments on reducing emissions.
The failure to agree means real negotiations will come later as they hope to reach a binding treaty by 2009 under the auspices of the United Nations.
"It's a small step, but real progress will have to wait for the next [U.S.] president," said Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of the Pew Environment Group in Washington, who was here monitoring developments.
Environmental groups and other analysts heaped criticism on the G-8 declaration, saying it was vague and lacked crucial numerical commitments to reducing carbon gases.
The five-page declaration -- endorsed by the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Russia -- promised "ambitious economy-wide" measures to slash emissions by 2020. It asked "all major economies," including emerging nations, to be bound by a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 global warming agreement, which is expected to be negotiated in Copenhagen by December 2009.
