This week's Group of Eight summit could reach an agreement on climate change, the Financial Times reported Monday, saying a draft final statement prepared over the weekend in London mentions human responsibility for global warming.
"There is an acknowledgment in the text that the science compels us to act and that human activity contributes to climate change," a diplomat from one of the G8 countries who took part in the drawing up of the document told the financial daily.
The summit of the world's leading economic powers takes place Wednesday to Friday in Gleneagles, Scotland, chaired by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
According to the diplomat, one of the "sherpas" sent by the eight countries to prepare the summit, the draft final statement makes two explicit references to the Kyoto protocol, a text that has always been rejected by US President George W. Bush.
The Kyoto protocol, which came into effect in February despite the US refusal to sign, aims at reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent by 2012 compared with 1990. The protocol was concluded in December
"The idea is there in the text that we know enough to slow climate change, to stop it and reverse it," another diplomat who took part in the negotiations told the Financial Times.
