Posted: 07/10/2008
G-8 Moves Toward U.S. Position On Emissions
Signatory Nation Back Off Previous Commitments
DALLAS (July 9, 2008) - Although 17 countries at the recent G-8 summit issued a statement calling global warming one of the great challenges of our time, they agreed only to "consider" halving emissions by 2050, backing off more stringent commitments and moving toward the position the U.S. has maintained since the beginning of the Bush Administration. And leaders of the world's major economic powers also attending the G-8 summit didn't even go that far.
"Other governments are quickly coming to the same conclusions the U.S. did years ago," said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. "We cannot meaningfully affect greenhouse gas emissions if rapidly developing countries don't reduce their emissions as well."
Environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, disapproved of the G-8 statement, saying it was weak and ambiguous, even though none of the plans environmentalists have supported in the past would actually reduce emissions enough to prevent any future warming, according to Dr. Burnett.
G-8 representatives also expressed "strong concern" about surges in the prices of oil and food and the "serious challenge" they pose to stable world economic growth, according to reports.
"Even Europeans are recognizing that hunger takes precedence over global warming, and the same is true for energy," Burnett added. "The high cost of unrealistic emissions goals is simply too high. So the U.S. stance is validated once again-only a substantial technological revolution can bring about real emissions reductions."