First Ladies tour L'Aquila hit by earthquake

US President Barack Obama has said an "historic consensus" on cutting pollution has been reached at the G8 summit in Italy. Speaking in L'Aquila - the town devastated in April by an earthquake which killed 300 people - Mr Obama said developed nations must take responsibility and lead on climate change. He said: "We agreed that the developed nations have a responsibility to take a lead. The US has a historic responsibility to take the lead. In the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short in meeting its responsibilities." He added: "While we don't expect to solve this problem in one meeting or one summit, I do believe we made some important strides forwards as we move towards Copenhagen. "Ice sheets are melting, sea levels are rising, our oceans are becoming more acidic and we have already seen its effects on wheather patterns our food and water sources and our habitats." On Wednesday, the G8 reached an agreement to seek to limit average global temperature increases to 2C by cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. But the group of major industrialised powers had faced a tough challenge to secure agreement from emerging economies to accept caps on their own fast-increasing carbon use. China and India believe that the lion's share of any self-restraint must be shown by the western nations which have contributed most to global warming by their use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution. Earlier this week, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said the West bore a "historical responsibility" for climate change, though negotiators at the summit suggested Delhi may be coming round to the need for agreement. China and India form part of the "plus five" group of emerging economies - also including Mexico, Brazil and South Africa - which joined the G8 nations for talks on climate change. These were followed by a summit of the Major Economies Forum on the climate, chaired by President Obama and comprising these 13 states plus other major CO2 emitters like Australia, Indonesia and South Korea.

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ITN | July 9, 2009

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