Bush wants global meeting on climate change

By Caren Bohan and Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, under fire for resisting tough action on global warming, on Thursday called on 15 influential countries to agree by the end of 2008 on a long-term goal to cut emissions.

The proposals, announced before a summit of major powers that will consider the issue, stressed new technologies to make energy use more efficient and restated Bush's rejection of firm caps on carbon dioxide emissions that many of his allies want.

Critics dismissed the strategy as a diversion and a delaying tactic but some European leaders and a U.N official expressed hope that it might be a first step to more action.

It was the strongest statement yet from the United States about curbing climate-warming emissions after the international first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped to forge an agreement on climate change at a Group of Eight summit of major industrialized countries she is hosting next week and Bush has been under pressure to give some ground at the meeting.

"The United States takes this issue seriously," Bush said in a speech on his agenda for the summit. "My proposal is this: By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases."

"To help develop this goal, the United States will convene a series of meetings of nations that produce most greenhouse gas emissions, including nations with rapidly growing economies like India and China," he added.

Bush's proposals included cuts in tariff barriers to encourage sharing environmental technology.

Merkel said Bush's announcement showed that global warming could not be ignored but said that work was still needed on the concrete formulations to be used at the G8 meeting at the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm.

"I think the important thing is -- for the first time America is saying it wants to be part of a global deal," British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Sky News.

In an interview with Reuters, U.N. climate change chief Yvo de Boer said that White House staff had indicated that this could be the start of a policy shift.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE SKEPTICAL

But many environmentalists were highly skeptical.

"The plan announced by President Bush today is a complete charade," said Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth. "It is an attempt to make the Bush administration look like it takes global warming seriously without actually doing anything to curb emissions."

The U.S. strategy calls for consensus on long-term goals for reducing the greenhouse gases that spur global warming, but not before the end of 2008, shortly before Bush's White House term ends. Bush would also call on countries to set medium term goals "that reflect their own mix of energy sources and future energy needs."