Rice defends U.S. stance on global warming

But she made clear the U.S. preferences for voluntary measures determined by each nation to help stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases that are heating the atmosphere like a greenhouse.

Though the meeting includes Britain, France, Germany and other nations in the Kyoto accord, many European officials expressed concern that Bush’s meeting would sidetrack the U.N. negotiations that have been the main forum for addressing global warming.

“Let me emphasize that this is not a one-size-fits-all effort,” Rice said at the start of a two-day climate meeting called by President George W. Bush. “Though united by common goals and collective responsibilities, all nations should tackle climate change in the ways that they deem best.”

Rice said the challenge of global climate change depends on working with businesses to develop cleaner-burning cars and other new technologies without starving national economies of the energy they need to grow.

“Managing the status quo is simply not an adequate response,” she said. “We must cut the Gordian knot of fossil fuels, carbon emissions and economic activity. This current system is no longer sustainable, and we must transcend it entirely through a revolution in energy technology.”

A Gordian knot is a difficult, intractable and often insolvable problem.

The United States has lined up with China, India and other major polluters in opposition to the mandatory cuts in Earth-warming greenhouse gases sought by the United Nations and European countries under the Kyoto Protocol. It is an attempt to bridge the differences between industrialized and fast-developing nations, none of which want to compromise economic growth.

Expressing the European view, John Ashton, a spcial representative on climate change for Britain, said in an interview, “We can’t do this on the basis of talking about talking or setting goals to set goals. “We know that a voluntary approach to global warming is about as effective as a voluntary speed limit sign in the road. We don’t just need an approach that works; we need an approach that works very quickly.”

A White House statement said the meeting will emphasize creating more diplomatic processes to find a solution to global warming, rather than setting firm goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for heating up the atmosphere.

The nations summoned by Bush will seek agreement on how the nations might set their own strategies beyond 2012, when the U.N.-brokered Kyoto Protocol expires, but also could include “a long term global goal,” the statement says.

Despite the emphasis on bureaucracy, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, told participants: “This has to be about more than presentations.”

Bush’s meeting notably includes the fast-emerging economies whose exclusion from the group of industrialized nations participating in Kyoto has been cited by his administration as reasons for rejecting that international climate accord.

“This relatively small group of countries holds a key to tackling a big part of the problem,” said Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official.

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