Leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations talked with their counterparts from five developing nations and joined leaders of some other major economies to discuss climate change and energy security on Wednesday, the final day of their three-day gathering in Hokkaido.

The G8 leaders, who will meet in Italy next year, discussed with their counterparts from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa on, among other issues, climate change, world economy and African development, which were chosen as the main topics of discussions at the summit in a lakeside resort of Toyako.

The leaders of the G8 and the five developing countries were later joined by Australia,Indonesia, and South Korea for a Major Economies Meeting that addressed climate change and energy security.

MAJOR ECONOMIES COMMIT TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING

The world major economies pledged to combat climate change in accordance with "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities".

"Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our time," said the leaders in a declaration, "Conscious of our leadership role in meeting such challenges, we, the leaders of the world's major economies, both developed and developing, commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and confront the interlinked challenges of sustainable development, including energy and food security, and human health."

The leaders said they support a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, including a long term global goal for emission reductions.

Achieving such a long term global goal requires respective mid-term goals, commitments and actions, taking into account differences in social and economic conditions, energy mix, demographics, and infrastructure, among other factors, said the declaration.

In this regard, the developed major economies will implement, consistent with international obligations, economy-wide mid-term goals and take corresponding actions in order to achieve absolute emission reductions and, where applicable, first stop the growth of emissions as soon as possible, said the leaders.

At the same time, the developing major economies will pursue nationally appropriate mitigation actions, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, with a view to achieving a deviation from business as usual emissions, the declaration said.

Speaking at the meeting, Chinese President Hu Jintao put forward a three-point proposal to the world's major economies on fighting climate change.

"As countries represented at this meeting differ in terms of stage of development, level of scientific and technological development and national conditions, our endeavor to combat climate change should be guided by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities," he said.

Hu said China will take substantial measures to cope with climate change.

With the spotlight on climate change at this year's gathering, the G8 a day earlier agreed on a long-term global reduction target of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

"We seek to share with all Parties to the UNFCCC the vision of, and together with them to consider and adopt in the UNFCCC negotiations, the goal of achieving at least 50 percent reduction of global emissions by 2050," the leaders said in a statement.

But the agreement by the G8 leaders was criticized by various non-governmental organizations which argued that they failed to specify the long- and mid-term targets of emission cuts for their respective countries.

AFRICA AID REAFFIRMED

The G8, which groups the world's riches nations, reaffirmed their promise to increase official development aid (ODA) to Africa by 25 billion U.S. dollars annually by 2010.

The leaders admitted that ODA from the G8 and other donors to Africa should be reassessed and may need to be increased for the period after 2010, beyond their current commitments.

Three years into the five-year aid promise, the G8 nations have delivered only 14 percent of the promised aid and, on current rends, are expected to fall 30 billion U.S. dollars short of the promised aid by 2010, said Oxfam, a non-governmental organization working to eradicate poverty internationally.

"Though the G8 communique reaffirms the Gleneagles commitment made three years ago, it offers no details on who will do what to reverse the steady decline in aid since 2006," said Oxfam.

Editor: Yan