Bush to commit $2 billion to climate change fund

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will commit $2 billion over the next three years to a new international fund to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change, President George W. Bush told Congress on Monday in his annual State of the Union speech.

"Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources," Bush said.

He said the United States is committed to working with major economies and the United Nations to complete an international agreement that "has the potential to slow, stop and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases."

"This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride," Bush said. "The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change."

Delegates from the biggest greenhouse gas-polluting countries will meet this week in Hawaii to spur U.N. negotiations for an international climate agreement by 2009 that would replace the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012.

The Bush administration rejects the Kyoto Protocol, saying it unfairly exempts developing countries from cutting emissions and could hurt the U.S. economy. Bush favors voluntary measures and "aspirational goals" to limit climate change.

In response to Bush's speech, environmental groups called the president's voluntary efforts to curb global warming an old approach that would not work.

"In the fight against global warming, the science is clear: the path to avoid catastrophic climate change starts with mandatory limits on global warming pollution ... a voluntary approach adds up to lots of rhetoric and little actual change," said the National Wildlife Federation.