President Bush To Be Active On Climate Front

"Amid a mounting sense of urgency about the need for action to slow climate change, President Bush this week will be playing what is, for him, an unusually prominent role in high-level diplomatic meetings on how to confront global warming.

What he will not do, officials said, is chart any shift in policies that have put him at odds with much of the world on the issue.

Monday, at a private dinner on climate change held by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Bush will join about two dozen other heads of state, several from countries most vulnerable to higher temperatures and rising seas. On Thursday, he will address a White House-hosted climate change conference that will include senior officials from rapidly developing nations such as China, India and Brazil, which have been reluctant to divert economic resources to curb their rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Top Bush administration officials said the president is not planning to alter his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases or to stray from his emphasis on promoting new technologies, especially for nuclear power and for the storage of carbon dioxide produced by coal plants." |Read more|