Global CEOs Back Greenhouse Gas Cuts, Carbon Caps

The business leaders said governments' overriding aim at a December U.N. meeting in Copenhagen on replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol should be limiting the global average rise in temperature to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius.

Global temperatures have risen 0.22 degrees (0.12 degrees Celsius) since 1990, according to one U.S. government estimate. The U.N.'s chief panel on climate change estimates that the risk of increased severe weather will rise if the global average temperature increases between 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) and 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels.

"There is nothing to be gained through delay," the statement said, and the richest countries should be the first to make the biggest emissions cuts.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen told participants "your words are sweet music in my ears," and called for developed countries to lead the way and enact emissions cuts of 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

But doing that will be difficult. At a separate meeting in Paris, French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, playing host to talks among the world's biggest polluters, said the United States had backpedaled on promises to slash carbon emissions but China appeared "absolutely determined" to make deep cuts.