G8's Toyako summit and all the talks

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The eight most advanced nations on Earth met in Toyako on the island of Hokkaido in Japan to talk on a set of issues ranging from global warming to soaring food and fuel prices to the election in Zimbabwe. The rhetoric on creating a carbon-free society and cutting emission level to half by 2050 was very much there. But the promise still remained as vague as ever as the G8 leaders did not clarify which year should be considered as the baseline whence the countdown to the cut-off time at 2050 would start. In fact, apart from big promises, few specifics did emerge from the Toyako summit of the Group of Eight nations wherein China, India, Brazil, South Africa among other developing countries did also participate. The success if any of the summits was the US President's recognition of the fact that global warming is a serious matter and his admission that US would contribute towards creating a carbon free society.

However, the US president's insistence that the developing nations like China and India should also be present at the talk was also fulfilled at the Tokayo summit. As the Illinois University climatologist Michael E. Schlesinger said, the outcome of the talk so far as climate change is concerned is just 'talking the talk,' one can easily infer that though the seriousness of the climate change issue has been recognised by all, appropriate action to mitigate the threat to humanity is not forthcoming.

But that is only expected of the global community when their leaderships are yet to be up to the tasks they are faced with, for the giants in politics who had the necessary imagination and vision to solve such crisis are now extinct. That is why, after each summit of barren talks, concerned people look forward to the next meeting with hopes further dwindling. However, there is still a saving grace. The cause of the CO2 emission the fossil fuel itself getting dearer as its reserves tucked away under the earth is depleting fast. The advanced and the fast developing nations will ultimately be forced to cut their consumption of petroleum products in the face of their soaring costs and look for the alternative, preferably, renewable sources of energy. Until that time the talks should continue.

Andrew C. Revkin of of the New York Times reports on the Wednesday's G-8 meeting: Nearly everyone had something to cheer about on Wednesday after the major industrial powers and a big group of emerging nations pledged to pursue "deep cuts" in emissions of heat-trapping gases in coming decades.

President Bush, who had insisted that any commitment to combat global warming must involve growing economies as well as the rich nations, recruited China and India to the table and received rare accolades from some environmentalists for doing so. The developing countries received a promise that the rich countries ould take the lead in curbing emissions. And environmentalists said the agreements renewed chances of reviving two ailing climate pacts, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

But behind the congratulatory speeches on Wednesday, some experts said, was a more sobering reality. The documents issued by the participating countries had very few of the concrete goals needed to keep greenhouse gases from growing at their torrid pace, they said.

The statement issued by the industrialized Group of 8 pledged to "move toward a carbon-free society" by seeking to cut worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050. But the statement did not say whether that baseline would be emissions at 1990 levels, or the less ambitious baseline of current levels, already 25 percent higher.

Mentions of mandatory restrictions on emissions were carefully framed.

Caps or taxes were endorsed where "national circumstances" made those acceptable. The statement urged nations to set "midterm, aspirational goals for energy efficiency."

There were new commitments to demonstrate that carbon dioxide from coal combustion could be captured, compressed, and stashed permanently underground.

But experts have said that process would have to work at the scale of billions of tons of carbon dioxide a year within a decade or two to avert a huge rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, while proposed projects are all measured in millions of tons.

The Group of 8 statement also pledged to increase aid to help developing countries improve energy efficiency or cut their vulnerability to climate risk.

But developing countries have noted that in the past those pledges have gone unfilled.

"I would characterize this outcome as 'talking the talk' rather then 'walking the walk' on climate change policy," said Michael E. Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has co-written many papers on climate policy.

Dr. Schlesinger and others said that neither this week's statements nor the two previous climate treaties seemed likely to significantly slow the rise over decades of heat-trapping gases, most notably carbon dioxide - an unavoidable byproduct of burning fossil fuels and forests.

Beyond any vagueness in this week's statements is the challenge that climate policy must compete with other pressing global problems, particularly rising prices for energy.

This reality was on display in Japan in the days leading up to the leaders' formal sessions. Gwyn Prins, an expert on climate policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was there for discussions preceding the formal talks and noted that current concerns about energy security were already clearly interfering with discussions aimed at climate stability.

One day, in particular, he said, was "gloriously incoherent." At a meeting in the morning, participants focused on finding ways to reduce gas prices, he said, while a session that afternoon focused on raising them through caps or taxes on fossil fuels.

The most discouraging aspect of the statements out of Japan, for many experts, was seeing the persistent gap between what science is saying about global warming and what countries are doing.

The United States appeared to regain some credibility at the meetings, but some environmentalists still found an opportunity to criticize President Bush. David G. Victor, an expert on climate policy at Stanford University, said that the power of any American president was limited, and that another barrier to cutting emissions was Congress.

"Nearly every government is looking beyond Bush, and while they are hopeful that the next president will surely be more constructive on this issue, they don't know what the president can really bring to the table," he said. "It is hard for the U.S. president to negotiate with strength when his ability to offer commitments hinges on national legislation that he does not control." Cutting emissions in half is just the first step in curtailing warming, climate experts have long said, because the main greenhouse gas generated by human activities, carbon dioxide, can persist for a century or more in the atmosphere, once it is released. That means that later in the century, emissions must drop nearly to zero, or large-scale techniques must be developed to pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Making a bit of lemonade from lemons, Dr. Victor saw a bright spot in the disagreements at the meetings. "Inability to agree is a sign that governments are actually getting serious," he said.

He concluded: "People are working hard and pursuing many avenues; in time, they will find routes that work. This is quite unlike the Kyoto process, which was marked by very rapid negotiations that produced agreements that looked good on paper, but didn't really reflect what important governments, such as the U.S., could actually deliver."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Rustsu, Japan reports: On Wednesday, leaders of developing nations took up the climate change issue and said that they too supported "a long-term global goal for emission eductions," but they were not specific and fell short of supporting the Group of 8 declaration.

In a sense, the Group of 8 document represents an environmental quid pro quo. In exchange for agreeing to the "50 by 2050" language, Mr. Bush got what he has sought as his price for joining an international accord: a statement from the rest of the Group of 8 that developing nations like China and India, which have not accepted mandatory caps on carbon emissions, must be included in any climate change treaty.

European leaders, who have long pressed Mr. Bush to take a more aggressive stance on global warming, said the declaration could enhance efforts to reach a binding agreement to reduce emissions when negotiators meet in Copenhagen next year under United Nations auspices.

"This is a strong signal to citizens around the world," the president of the European Commission, Jos