Under pressure to boost talks on a new global warming pact, Group of Eight environment ministers May 26 endorsed slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 but failed to agree on more contentious near-term targets.

The three-day meeting in Kobe was dominated by calls from the U.N., European countries and developing nations to move forward on setting midterm targets for cutting emissions by 2020, which scientists say are needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

Ministers from the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Italy and Russia, however, only mentioned the need to eventually set such targets in a carefully worded statement, frustrating environmentalists and some European ministers.