L'Aquila, Italy - The world's richest nations Thursday reached a landmark deal with India, China and other major polluters on the need to limit global warming to within 2 degrees centigrade as a necessary step to prevent catastrophic consequences to the climate, diplomats said Thursday. The leaders of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United States, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and South Korea gave their broad backing to the goal ahead of opening formal talks in the Italian town of L'Aquila.
"This is the first time that the MEF countries sign such a joint accord on climate," a source close to the talks told the German Press Agency dpa.
On Wednesday, Group of Eight (G8) leaders gave their first formal endorsement to the 2-degree goal long advocated by scientists. To reach this objective, they said world emissions should be halved by 2050 and pledged to cut their pollution by 80 per cent by the same deadline.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that if the world's average temperature rises by more than 2 degrees when compared to their pre-industrial levels, it will cause catastrophic changes to global weather patterns, triggering widespread storms, flooding, droughts and famines.
After clinching a deal at G8 level on Wednesday, the meeting's host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, called on major developing nations to endorse those goals as the foundations of an international deal on fighting climate change at United Nations talks planned for December in Copenhagen.
However, while heads of state and government from the 16-nation bloc were set to formally endorse the G8's goal in L'Aquila, no deal was expected on specific greenhouse gas emission cuts by the MEF during Thursday's talks.
Sources close to the negotiations nevertheless hailed the breakthrough as "the start of joint progress" that should facilitate a deal in Copenhagen.
Environmentalists welcomed the move, noting that this was the first time that China and India - two of the world's biggest polluters - had accepted the 2-degrees goal.
But they expressed disappointment at the fact that no targets for greenhouse gas emission cuts would be set.
"It is an indication that the leaders are taking climate change seriously, but not yet seriously enough to also commit to the immediate and mid-term action needed for emission reductions," said Kim Carstensen of WWF, a pressure group.
Carstensen said there was "general disappointment among big emerging economies with the level of ambition shown so far in terms of emission reductions from developed countries."
And "while it would not be fair for one block to go the whole way before the other budged at all, we need to see more convincing signals from developed countries before we can expect China and India to budge," he said.
Denmark was also attending the talks in L'Aquila as host of the UN conference in December, which will seek to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
