A rift over climate change widened Monday as the head of the European Commission urged leaders of the world's wealthy nations to act first in setting targets for reducing greenhouse gases _ putting U.S. President George W. Bush in an increasingly lonely position, reported ap. Climate change has emerged as the most contentious issue at this year's summit of the Group of Eight top industrialized nations, which began Monday, and is expected to be the focus of debate when the G-8 leaders are joined on Wednesday by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. China and India say it is up to the heavily polluting developed world to take the lead in the fight against global warming. But Bush says developing nations must take equal measures to make any deal work, and has shown little enthusiasm for setting goals without them. That position came under fire Monday. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the G-8 nations must reach agreement among themselves on climate change measures and avoid taking the approach that «I will do nothing unless you do it first,» which he called a «vicious circle.» «If we agree, then we are in a much better position to discuss with our Chinese and Indian partners and others,» Barroso said. Because of their huge populations and fast-rising economies, China and India are major emitters of greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. China has said it is ready to discuss setting medium- and long-term goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and is open to negotiating targets. But Beijing has not changed its view that the main responsibility still lies with developed countries. India has vowed to keep its emissions below those of developed countries, but is also looking for them to set the pace. Japan, this year's G-8 host, has cast the summit's spotlight on climate change and is supporting its U.S. ally in pushing for wider international talks. «There should be a shared sense of crisis on climate change, and based on that the G-8 leaders would agree on the need for total participation from all the major economies,» said Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama. G-8 environment ministers said in May there was a «strong political will» to reach an agreement at the summit to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050, but that a consensus had not been reached on midterm targets for 2020. Because of dissent within the G-8 itself, it was unclear whether the leaders would be able to go much further this week than their ministers did in May. The G-8 _ which groups the United States, Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Britain and Japan _ accounts for about 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions today, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. More than other G-8 leaders, Bush has insisted on holding China and India to the same emission-reduction standards as nations that developed earlier. «I've always advocated that there needs to be a common understanding and that starts with a goal. And I also am realistic enough to tell you that if China and India don't share that same aspiration, that we're not going to solve the problem,» Bush said at a pre-summit news conference on Sunday. Advocacy groups say the G-8 focus on Chinese and Indian participation is a shield for their own failure to unite behind specific interim targets. «Finger-pointing at China and India is a poor excuse for G-8 inaction,» Antonio Hill, a spokesman for Oxfam International, said in a statement. «People living in poverty already suffer terrible consequences from the profligate emissions of rich countries.» Kim Carstensen, a spokesman for the environmental group WWF, said he sees little good coming out of the summit. «I'm not hopeful that we will get much out of the discussions,» he said, though he commended recent movements by Beijing to reduce its emissions. Hu held a high-level study session on climate change with the Communist Party's ruling Politburo last month, where he insisted that climate change be an important consideration in China's development. Hu wants China to improve its pricing of energy and its laws and regulations. Still, China's projected annual increase in emissions is greater than the total now produced each year by either Britain or Germany, according to a report by economists from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at San Diego. The U.N. launched negotiations late last year on a new climate change pact to take over when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol _ which the U.S. hasn't ratified _ expires at the end of 2012. Negotiators face a deadline of December 2009, when 190 nations are to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark.
