Development of a joint declaration on efforts to tackle global warming has been much less successful, principally because of the long-standing U.S. opposition to emission targets as a solution to global warming. The other seven G8 nations – France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom – have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and have committed to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. Hopes had been raised that the unprecedented joint declaration by the G8 countries' academies of sciences on the need for urgent action on global warming would help moderate the US negotiating position.