Earth Equity News

Breakthroughs Unlikely as G8 Climate Ministers Gather This Weekend. By Chisa Fujioka, Reuters, May 19, 2008. "Environment ministers from rich nations and other major greenhouse gas emitters will seek to build momentum for talks on emissions reduction targets this weekend in Japan, but agreement will be hard to reach. Officials from the Group of Eight and big emerging economies, including China and India, meet from Saturday in Kobe, western Japan, as countries remain divided over the need for a global target to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. G8 leaders agreed to seriously consider the mid-century target at last year's summit in Germany, a proposal backed by Japan, the E.U. and Canada. But developing countries have balked at committing to the goal without the U.S. doing more... posing a headache for Japan as it tries to encourage all major emitters to sign up at a G8 summit it hosts in July. Japan said the three-day meeting of environment ministers would try to lay the groundwork for the July leaders' summit but breakthroughs were unlikely since any agreement would ultimately be left to heads of state."