Bush sets global climate meeting for Sept. 27-28

U.S. President George W. Bush (C) speaks next to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (L) and Vice President Dick Cheney at the FBI Headquarters in Washington, August 3, 2007.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration unveiled plans on Friday for global warming talks next month that will bring together the world's biggest polluters to seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gases.

U.S. President George W. Bush has invited the European Union, the United Nations and 11 other countries to the Sept. 27-28 meeting in Washington to work toward setting a long-term goal by 2008 to cut emissions.

Under fire for resisting tougher action on global warming, Bush proposed the conference in late May before a summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations in Germany, but had withheld details.

In a letter to invitees obtained by Reuters, Bush assured them that "the United States is committed to collaborating with other major economies" to agree on a framework for reducing gas emissions blamed for global climate change.

But a senior U.S. official said the administration stood by its opposition to mandatory economy-wide caps. Many climate experts say that without binding U.S. emissions targets, the chance for significant progress is limited.

Bush agreed with other leaders of the G8 in June to make "substantial" but unspecified reductions in climate-warming emissions and to negotiate a new global climate pact that would extend and broaden the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

But Bush has refused to sign up to numerical targets before rising powers like China and India make similar pledges. Convincing them to join the U.N. process will be crucial to reversing a rise in global temperatures.

China and India are both invited to the September conference, together with Japan, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. The EU delegation will include representatives from France, Germany, Italy and Britain, the U.S. official said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host the meeting.

FIRST IN SERIES OF MEETINGS

"At this meeting, we would seek agreement on the process by which the major economies would, by the end of 2008, agree upon a post-2012 framework that could include a long-term goal, nationally defined mid-term goals and strategies and sector-based approaches for improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions," Bush wrote.

Bush said he would deliver the opening speech and asked countries to send senior officials to the conference, which he touted as the first in a "series of meetings throughout 2008 to further refine our plans and accelerate our progress."

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said extensive contacts had already been made and the administration is confident all the invitees will attend.

Bush's position on climate change has evolved from questioning the science linking human activity to global warming in 2001 to agreeing more recently to work with the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and others to formulate international goals by the end of 2008, shortly before his White House tenure ends.

But Bush blocked German-led efforts at the G8 summit to secure agreement on 50 percent cuts from 1990 levels by 2050.

He remains opposed to hard limits on U.S. emissions, maintaining this would put American business at a disadvantage internationally.

However, experts say hard limits are needed to provide the essential trigger for a market in which industry would be forced to clean up or pay for the right to pollute.

Bush resisted pressure for fixed emissions reduction targets at the G8 summit, though he agreed to fold his own climate plans into the U.N. framework.

But he is likely to be out of office by the time any post-Kyoto deal is clinched and U.S. participation will depend on big polluters like China and India joining in.