Bush sets global climate meeting for Sept. 27-28

By Matt Spetalnick

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.