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Blair urges binding emissions cuts ahead of summit

Former British prime minister Tony Blair yesterday urged the world's heaviest polluters including the US and China to agree to binding emissions cuts, saying failure to act on global warming would be "unforgivably irresponsible."

Blair is heading a new team of experts tasked with bridging the gaps in slow-moving negotiations to draft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year.

"We have reached the critical moment for the decision on climate change," Blair told a meeting of top officials from the world's top 20 greenhouse gas emitters in Tokyo.

"Even on the mildest application of precautionary principles, failure to act on climate change now would be deeply and unforgivably irresponsible," he said.

But environmental activists in the closed-door meeting said there was still a gap between industrial states and developing nations, which are concerned that stringent cuts could hurt their growth.

The weekend meeting is meant to pave the way for a summit of the G8 wealthy nations on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in July.

"The G8 summit this year at Hokkaido will be the date with destiny on the issue," said Blair, who stepped down as prime minister last year after 10 years.

Last year's summit of the G8 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US -- agreed to seriously consider a target of 50 percent cuts in emissions by 2050.

But there was no binding commitment and the base year for the reductions was ambiguous.
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