Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter, says Bush to G8 leaders

London, July 11 : After rejecting global climate-change targets, US President George W Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept targets at his last G8 summit.

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter," The Independent quoted Bush, as saying to fellow G8 leaders.

President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said on Thursday.

His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the US President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.

He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

But green groups had protested that the meeting was a missed opportunity to secure the radical reductions in carbon emissions that were needed to reduce global warming.

China and India, who were among the emerging economies invited to the summit, refused to sign up to binding agreements without firmer commitments from the US and the other industrialised nations to cut their CO2 emissions.

ANI