G8 set for showdown with poorer states over climate

By Yoko Kubota and Oleg Shchedrov

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - Big emerging economies will come under pressure on Wednesday to respond in kind to an initiative by rich countries to work towards a target of at least halving their global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations want the leaders of eight fast-growing countries to adopt a "shared vision" of tackling global warming in U.N. negotiations due to conclude in Copenhagen in December 2009.

"There has been major progress on the climate change agenda beyond what people thought possible a few months ago," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said of Tuesday's agreement.

"For the first time the G8 has said we will adopt at least a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 as part of a worldwide agreement that we hope to get in Copenhagen," he said.

The U.N.-led talks aim to create a new framework for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Critics said the agreement was a timid advance on last year's summit commitment in Heiligendamm, Germany, to seriously consider the 2050 goal of halving emissions by mid-century.

"This is a complete failure of responsibility. They haven't moved forward at all. They've ducked the responsibility of adopting clear mid-term targets and even the 2050 target is not a single thing more than what we got in Heiligendamm," said Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International's political adviser.

Environmental group WWF called the G8's stance "pathetic".