Vague G8 Goals Deflate Green Hopes

G8 leaders are hailing an agreement to cut carbon emissions in half by 2050 as "major progress" in combating climate change—but their failure to come up with concrete shorter-term goals is a major letdown, Bryan Walsh writes in Time. The agreement, so vague it doesn't even say which year is to be used as a starting point, is unlikely to spur the immediate changes needed to avert possible catastrophe.

The "fuzzy-minded statement" is especially disappointing because China and India had signaled their readiness to act before 2020 in concert with developed nations, breaking a long-standing stalemate on who should cut emissions first, Walsh writes. "The only strong signal the G8 declaration sends is that the world is still not ready to act," he complains. (More Group of Eight stories.)