The world's leading industrialized nations pledged to limit global warming to within two degrees of pre-industrial levels, but dates pegged to concrete emissions goals are a long way off. Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations made a bid to prevent catastrophic climate change on Wednesday, calling for global warming to be kept to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. They also agreed to new carbon emissions cut targets, pledging to cut emissions from within their borders by 80 percent by 2050. G-8 leaders also expressed hope that they would be able to convince rapidly developing nations to limit their own emissions, pitching in on an effort to cut worldwide emissions by 50 percent over that time. "We have agreed for the first time [in the G-8] that average global temperatures must rise by no more than two degrees...We hope that we will get that agreement tomorrow too," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during a break in talks at the summit of G-8 leaders in the Italian town of L'Aquila.
Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations made a bid to prevent catastrophic climate change on Wednesday, calling for global warming to be kept to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.
They also agreed to new carbon emissions cut targets, pledging to cut emissions from within their borders by 80 percent by 2050. G-8 leaders also expressed hope that they would be able to convince rapidly developing nations to limit their own emissions, pitching in on an effort to cut worldwide emissions by 50 percent over that time.
"We have agreed for the first time [in the G-8] that average global temperatures must rise by no more than two degrees...We hope that we will get that agreement tomorrow too," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during a break in talks at the summit of G-8 leaders in the Italian town of L'Aquila.
