G8 will not set targets to cut global warming

The G8 summit is to discuss the role of nuclear power in reducing climate change - but it is not preparing to set new targets or a timetable to reduce global warming, according to a leaked document.

The G8 summit is to discuss the role of nuclear power in reducing climate change - but it is not preparing to set new targets or a timetable to reduce global warming, according to a leaked document.

A draft outlining the "commitments" industrialised nations will make on climate change shows no new timetable for cutting carbon emissions or any ambitious new targets for progress after 2012.

But it discloses that talks about "cleaner" technologies will include nuclear power, despite public opposition to expanding the technology in the UK.

The draft text, outlining the key climate change issues for the G8 summit, says that the summit, which is being chaired by the UK in Gleneagles in July, will end with a joint "statement" on nuclear power.

Yesterday green groups seized on the paper as evidence that the G8 summit would be a talking shop and said the initiatives being prepared were "weak", "ineffective" and lacked "urgency".

The paper - Draft G8 Climate Change and Sustainable Energy - shows aviation will be high on the agenda. But there is no mention of taxing airline fuel - a policy opposed by the US.

Instead, the draft says more cash should be pumped into research into climate science "to inform technological and operational responses."