U.S. says its ozone bid beats Kyoto on climate change

By Jeff Mason

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A U.S. proposal to hasten the phase-out of gases that damage the ozone layer will be twice as effective as the Kyoto Protocol in fighting climate change, a top adviser to President George W. Bush said on Friday.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States would propose that deadlines for phasing out HCFC gases, used in fridges and air conditioners, be moved forward by 10 years.

"We're going to propose to significantly shorten the timeline ... both because we can get the ozone benefits and because these are very strong greenhouse gases," he told Reuters in an interview.

"It would produce at least two times the reductions (in greenhouse gases) than the Kyoto Protocol."

Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing the treaty would cost U.S. jobs and that it wrongly excluded poorer, developing nations from emissions-reduction targets.

The HCFCs proposal will come at a meeting of roughly 190 governments in Montreal next week. Washington seeks to move the phase-out deadline for developed countries to 2020 from 2030 and to 2030 from 2040 for developing nations.

The talks precede a United Nations climate change meeting in New York later this month, followed by a conference in Washington of major economic powers called by Bush to pursue an agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which goes through 2012.

Bush planned to address the Washington meeting and would also attend a dinner hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York to discuss global warming with other world leaders on September 24, Connaughton said.