Environmental ministers seek deep emissions cuts

KOBE, Japan (AP) — European and developing countries urged the United States and Japan on Sunday to commit to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 — a step they say is needed to defuse a coming ecological disaster caused by global warming.

The calls at a meeting of environment ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Japan coincided with rising concern that momentum is draining from U.N.-led efforts to force a new climate change agreement by a December 2009 deadline.

The G8 nations — the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada, Russia and France — are largely on board with a proposal to attempt to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases responsible for global warming by 50% by 2050.

But a major focus of the meeting in Kobe is midterm targets for 2020, which scientists say are needed to avoid a potentially disastrous rise in world temperatures of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over levels prior to the industrial age.

"A long-term goal is not a substitute for midterm, mandatory targets," said Matthias Machnig, Germany's environment minister.

(...)

The United States, however, has not committed to a midterm goal, demanding that top developing countries like China also commit to reductions. Japan has called for emissions by industrialized countries to begin to fall in the next one or two decades, but it too z+_ KJIJOhas stopped short of setting a 2020 target.

Continue reading the article here...