& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

G8 agrees to halve emission by 2050

Soaring oil, food prices threaten global economy, says G8

AFP, AP, Toyako
Eight of the world's most powerful leaders called yesterday for efforts to cool sizzling oil prices, warning soaring fuel and food costs were a threat to world economic growth.
The Group of Eight rich nations said it was ready to take action to cushion global growth from runaway energy costs, but stopped short of announcing concrete steps on the second day of an annual summit.
The G8 nations -- Britain. Canada. France, Germany, Italy, Japan. Russia and the United States — said the world economy was ’facinguncertainty," although they remained positive about the longterm resilience of their economies.
They expressed "strong concern" about oil and food prices, which they said "pose a serious challenge to stable growth world wide, have serious impbeations for the most vulnerable and increase
global inflationary pressure."
The higher cost of fuel and food has led to protests worldwide, from tens of thousands of truck drivers striking in Spain and Portugal to street rallies in Asia and riots In Egypt and Haiti.
The G8 said it was "imperative" to remove export restrictions that hinder humanitarian purchases of food and called on nations with sufficient food stocks to release some of their reserves to countries in need.
On climate change, the G8 said they had agreed on the need to at least halve global carbon emissions by 2050, in what leaders hailed as a breakthrough but environmentalists slammed as too little, too late.
"The G8 nations came to a mutual recognition that this target cutting global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 should be a global target," said Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who
announced the endorsement.
The G8 last year at a summit in Germany pledged to consider the 2050 target, and this year's Japanese hosts had hoped to solidify that commitment at the meeting in Toyako, northern Japan.
The G8 has been under pressure to secure commitments by wealthy nations to push forward stalled UN-led talks on forging a new accord to battle global warming by the end of next year Tuesday's statement, however, addressed world emissions rather than just those produced by wealthy countries.
The United States hailed the agreement, which Washington said fit with its stance that all major economies such as China, India and others need to participate in reducing emissions. Major developing nations have urged wealthy countries to take the first step in cuttinggreenhouse gases. "It has always been the case that a long-term goal is one that must be shared. So the G8 has offered today is a G8 view of what that goal could be and should be but that can only occur with the agreement of all the other parties," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality.
Environmentalists criticised the statement for failing to go beyond the G8 statement last year.
"So little progress after a whole year of Minister meetings and negotiations is not only a wasted opportunity, it falls dangerously short of what is needed to protect people and nature from climate change," said Kim Carstensen, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate Initiative.
Environmentalists have argued that the 50 percent reduction target is insufficient, and have clamored for ambitious targets for countries to cut emissions by 2020. Japan itself has set a national target for cutting emissions by between 60 percent and 80 percent by 2050, but has not set a midterm goal.
The threat from inflation has become the top economic concern for the G8 amid concerns it could dampen consumer spending and require higher interest rates that would act as a brake on growth.
Huddled in talks amid tight security in this spa resort in northern Japan, the G8 called for an increase in oil production and refining capacity to help stem soaring crude prices, which have leapt five-fold since2003.
But the G8's remarks had little immediate impact on oil prices, which were up almost a dollar a barrel in Asian trade.
Analysts said the reality was that the G8 nations have few obvious options to cool red-hot energy prices in the foreseeable future.
"While they can express serious concern about it I don't think it's really within their sphere of influence," said Glenn Maguire, chief Asia economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.
Countries with spare oil supply capacity and emerging economies that are driving up demand "are not under the G8 umbrella," he said.
Saudi Arabia last month agreed to increase its daily oil production, but most members of the OPEC oil cartel remain firmly against an output boost, blaming speculators and the fall in the dollar for the oil price surge.
One way the G8 could try to rein in oil prices would be through efforts to stabilise the US currency, but that would require higher US interest rates or market intervention, which both seem unlikely at the moment, Maguire said.
The summit statement made no mention of the weakness of the US currency, although US President George W. Bush told fellow G8 leaders that he was committed to "a strong dollar."
"The president of course reaffirmed his interest in a strong dollar and his commitment to a strong dollar," said Dan Price, Bush's assistant for international economic affairs.
The G8 issued a thinly veiled call on China to allow a stronger yuan, saying that it was vital for some emerging economies with large and growing current account surpluses to allow exchange rate flexibility.
The rich nations’ club said it would resist trade protectionism and called for efforts to galvanise stalled global free trade talks.
They recognised that government-controlled sovereign wealth funds were "increasingly important participants in the world economy" and welcomed efforts by some to be more transparent.
The funds, seen as the new heavyweights in global finance, have stirred political fears in Western capitals after coming to the rescue of a number of big banks hit by huge losses from the US mortgage crisis.