Bush Seeks New Image on Global Warming

"President Bush's call on Friday for a new fund to reduce global warming fell flat with Europeans and environmentalists who say U.N.-mandated cuts in greenhouse gases are what's needed.

To show he meant business, Bush designated his treasury secretary to talk to other nations about getting worldwide contributions to the fund. The money would pay for clean-energy projects in poor countries.


"This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind," Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said after Bush's speech at the State Department before representatives of the nations that are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. "In substance, we are still far apart."

In his speech, Bush acknowledged that climate change is real and that human activity is a factor.

"By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem, and by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it," he said. "We share a common responsibility: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while keeping our economies growing."

The president's speech capped two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate conference that brought together the U.S. and developing nations such as China, India and Brazil that are not required to make cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. treaty for reducing greenhouse gases that expires in 2012." | Read more |