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WASHINGTON : US President George W. Bush, seeking to grab the initiative on climate change, renewed his opposition to mandatory caps on greenhouses gases on Friday and called a summit on the issue by mid-2008.
In a speech to 16 major polluting nations, Bush appeared to give little substantive ground in his standoff with the United Nations on how to tackle the dangers of global warming which experts warn is already damaging the planet.
"Our guiding principle is clear. We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people," Bush said.
And he renewed his opposition to imposing mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, which industry and business leaders in the energy-guzzling United States fear could leave them with hefty bills, and boost consumer costs.
"Each nation must decide for itself the right mix of tools and technologies" to fight global warming, Bush said on the second and final day of the conference organized at his initiative in Washington.
Europe countries and other global warming experts remain wary of any US attempt to parlay the Washington initiative into a narrow, unambitious alternative to the UN process, which is slower and cumbersome but more demanding in its curbs.
But Bush stressed the United States, the world's number one economy and also its top polluter, took global warming seriously, promising it would set "a long-term goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions."
And the US president said he hoped to call a meeting of heads of state on climate change by the middle of next year.
"We will set a long-term goal for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions," Bush said.
"By setting this goal, we acknowledge that there is a problem and by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it. By next summer, we will complete a meeting of heads of state to finalize the goal."
He also proposed setting up a fund, to be fed by contributions from governments around the world, to help developing nations harness the power of clean energy technologies.
"We must also work to make these technologies more widely available, especially in the developing world," Bush told a conference of 16 major polluters.
Bush's comments will be closely scrutinized for any sign of a change of direction in US policy, after isolating the US administration for six years from the global task force for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
And his speech is unlikely to have comforted skeptics, who believe the United States is making little effort to rein in its major contribution to the problem of global warming which is changing the planet's climate system.
Carbon pollution, mainly derived from burning fossil fuels, traps solar heat in the atmosphere and is slowly heating Earth's surface, wreaking the first of what could be dramatic changes to the climate system.
At a UN summit on climate change on Monday, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, warned the crisis was accelerating.
Glaciers and Arctic sea ice were retreating rapidly and "major precipitation changes" -- droughts and floods -- were occurring, according to the UN's top scientific panel on climate change.
On present trends, hundreds of millions of people face worsening water scarcity as a result of glacier loss in the Himalayas, which feed key rivers in China and South Asia. Water scarcity could affect the growing of key crops.
UN officials are now looking towards key talks taking place under the UN in Bali, Indonesia, in December on how to deepen emissions cuts when the current commitments set out at the Koyoto Protocol expire at the end of 2012.
"Our view is that Bali is the landmark that we must all look at," said Portuguese Deputy Environment Minister Humberto Rosa, whose country is current president of the European Union.
The 16 nations gathered in Washington are Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States.
Together they account for about two-thirds of the world's population, 80 percent of the global economy and about 80 percent of global emissions, according to US figures. Representatives from the EU presidency and Commission and from the UNFCCC are also attending.
- AFP /ls
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