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Leading politicians agree a new proposal to tackle climate change at US meeting.
Legislators from the world's wealthiest industrialized nations and from major developing countries have signed a non-binding agreement to reduce carbon emissions. The announcement came at the end of a two-day summit in Washington DC.
In a bid to influence the follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, delegates from the G8 industrialized nations and five major emerging economies approved a proposal to establish a global 'cap and trade' market to limit carbon emissions.
The agreement proposes international caps for greenhouse-gas emissions, with both industrialized and developing countries accepting limits on emissions: under the Kyoto agreement, only developed nations are forced to do this. Countries that have signed up to Kyoto can reduce their emissions figures by participating in markets such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.
The new agreement will be presented for consideration to the next G8 summit, where member nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — will once again discuss the issue of how to tackle climate change.
