L'AQUILA, July 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia refuses to back a target of an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 proposed by other Group of Eight countries, a Kremlin aide said on Wednesday after the first day of the G8 summit in Italy.

At a news conference earlier in the day, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the world’s richest nations should cut their emissions by 80% by the middle of the century.

Arkady Dvorkovich, who is accompanying President Dmitry Medvedev at the summit in the central Italian mountain town of L'Aquila, told reporters: “We will not sacrifice our economic growth to meet emissions cuts. Economic growth must be effective. Everyone spoke about this.”

He called the 80% target “unacceptable, and probably unattainable.”

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, earlier said the G8 had agreed to set targets that would limit the likely rise in global temperatures due to man-made emissions to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. He also said 1990 should be set as the base year for measuring emission reductions.