TOYAKO (Japan), July 9: The G-8 leaders patched together a deal to fight climate change at a summit that wound up on Wednesday, but failed to convince big emerging economies that rich countries were doing enough.

Climate change was the most contentious topic at this year’s G-8 summit in Japan, which also tackled political problems from the crisis in Zimbabwe to worsening security in Afghanistan as well as soaring food and oil prices and poverty in Africa.

“There’s been no huge breakthrough at this particular meeting, it is one step along the road,” said Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who attended a climate change meeting on Wednesday.

A 16-member Major Economies Meeting group agreed that “deep cuts” in greenhouse gas emissions were needed to combat the global warming that is closely linked to rising prices already hitting vulnerable economies hard.

But bickering between rich and poorer countries kept most emerging economies from signing on to a goal of at least halving global emissions by 2050.

The rich countries had to paper over deep gaps just to get their own climate change deal, with Europe and Japan urging bolder action while the United States opposed promising firm targets without assurances big emerging economies will act too.

US President George W. Bush said “significant progress” was made on climate change at the summit, while Japan and the European Union also lauded the outcome.

Environmentalists, though, saw nothing to cheer.

“It’s the stalemate we’ve had for a while,” Kim Carstensen, director of the WWF’s global climate initiative, said in remarks.

Many are sceptical that any significant new steps to combat global warming can be made until a new US president comes to office in January 2009. It was a view shared by South Africa, one of five big emerging economies collectively called the G-5.

“Until there’s a change in the position of the United States, South Africa’s feeling is that it will be very difficult for the G-5 to move forward because they will always be forced to work on that level of the lowest common denominator,” South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters.

India told the major economies meeting that developed countries had not done enough.

“This must change and you (the G-8) must all show the leadership that you have always promised by taking and then delivering truly significant GHG (greenhouse gas) reductions,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.

Referring to the Afghan issue, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: “We have serious challenges there, and we simply must make progress on governance, on security and on development in the next 12 to 24 months. We have got to get this situation moving in the right direction.”—Agencies

Key agreements

HERE are the key points of the agreements of the G-8:

Afghan issue: The G-8 urged Afghanistan to take more responsibility for security, governance and reconstruction and pledged to increase aid to the Afghan army and police.

It also underscored its commitment to support presidential and parliamentary elections and agreed to strengthen assistance to the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

African development: The leaders set a five-year deadline to commit $60 billion in funding to help the continent fight disease, including pledging 100 million mosquito nets by 2010 which officials hoped would prevent thousands of deaths from malaria.

Food crisis: Expressing “serious concern” about rising food prices, the G8 called on nations with sufficient food stocks to release some of them to help others cope with soaring prices and said it was “imperative” to remove export restrictions.

Fuel: They called for an increase in oil production and refining capacities to help rein in soaring crude prices.

WTO talks: The G8 vowed to resist protectionist pressures and expressed “strong will” to work toward a breakthrough in free trade talks.

Zimbabwe: The meeting voiced “grave concern” about the violence-marred re-election last month of President Robert Mugabe. They warned of action against individuals behind the violence.

Iran and N. Korea’s N-plans: The leaders urged Iran to end its uranium enrichment activities in line with UN Security Council resolutions and called upon Tehran to respond positively to international mediation.

They also urged North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons and cooperate in the verification of its dossier of nuclear programmes.—AFP