At its recent summit, which concluded on Friday, the G-8 committed itself to reducing carbon emissions by 2050, no less than 41 years in the future, when the leaders making the pledge will probably be no more, and almost certainly out of office. While the G-8 typically dealt with the problem by placing it in a future where it will almost surely not affect the electoral prospects of those currently holding office, it also constituted an acknowledgement of something that had earlier been dismissed as pseudo-science global warming. The G-8 did not so much commit to targets for emissions, as to preventing the increase in the average global temperature that global warming is supposed to cause, and has chosen the route of reducing carbon emissions. The development meets two G-8 goals. First, it prevents, or at least slows, the development of emerging economies, which relied on increasing their carbon emissions to develop into world powers, like India, China and Brazil. This leaves the G-8 countries at the top of the heap. Also, it reduces the amount of aid the G-8 will be expected to hand out, because global warming is expected to hit hardest in areas where the governments are least able to help. However, so far action by the G-8 on global warming was stopped by US fears that reducing carbon emissions would reduce American jobs. However, now the United States and other G-8 nations set a goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050. That is part of a plan to have all such gases, from rich and poor nations alike, fall by 50 percent globally by that year. That is all very well, but safely in the far-off future. The G-8 should have set itself more specific goals, which are of more immediate application. These goals would be such that they could be seen to make those immediate changes that the long-term goal implies. The targets should also have been for, say, a decade at a time, with the same level of reduction being achieved as now set.