The environment ministers of the G-8 nations meeting in Kobe, Japan concluded their talks Monday without a firm commitment to address the planet’s serious environmental problems. Japan, United States, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Russia were unable to agree on the thorny issue of medium range greenhouse gas reductions by 2020. Instead they only managed to recognize the need to reach an agreement and expressed their will to do so, proposing the goal to reduce emissions by half by 2050. The meeting, a prelude to the July 7 to 9 G-8 Summit to take place on the island of Hokkaido Japan, ended without concrete progress as each of the participants clung to their stance.