A multilateral forum on climate change is set to call for a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050, with industrialized nations reducing their air pollution by at least 80 percent, according to a draft of its declaration.
The draft, to be adopted at the summit of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit this week in Italy, notes that it is "aware of the broad scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above preindustrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees."
The draft was apparently referring to a proposal by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that developed countries cut emissions between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels to keep temperatures below a 2 degree rise. Some economists and environmentalists see this as the threshold for dangerous climate change involving water scarcity, coastal flooding and infectious diseases.