Major economies should aim to halve world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and work out ways to bury gases in a wider assault on climate change, the science academies of 13 nations said on Tuesday.

“Progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emission has been slow,” the academies of the Group of Eight (G8) nations and China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa said in a statement targeting leaders at July 7-9 summits in Japan.

The statement noted that G8 leaders agreed in 2007 to “consider seriously” a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to help limit changes such as droughts or flooding, heatwaves, more powerful cyclones or rising seas.

“We urge G8+5 leaders to make maximum efforts to carry this forward and commit to these emission reductions,” according to the statement. The G8+5 is the G8 and the five big developing nations.

Last year at the G8 summit in Germany, leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and Canada favored a goal of halving world emissions by 2050. The United States and Russia were opposed.

Developing nations argue that rich countries have to take the lead before they sign up to any curbs on their rising emissions.

The academies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also urged work on technologies for capturing greenhouse gases, for instance from coal-fired power plants, and burying them in porous rocks.

Read Full Story Here