Bush skips U.N. climate summit, will host his own

UNITED NATIONS — World leaders at the first United Nations climate summit sought Monday to put new urgency into talks to reduce global-warming emissions.

What's needed is "action, action, action," California's environmentalist governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the assembled presidents and premiers.

The Bush administration showed no sign, however, that it would reverse its stand against mandatory emission cuts endorsed by 175 other nations. The White House plans its own forum on the issue later this week.

President Bush didn't take part in the day's sessions, which drew more than 80 national leaders, but he attended a small dinner Monday evening, a gathering of key climate players hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban set the day's theme in his opening speech, declaring that "the time for doubt has passed" on the issue of global warming and calling the U.N. climate talks "the appropriate forum for negotiating global action."

He organized the one-day summit to build momentum for December's annual climate-treaty conference in Bali, Indonesia, when Europe, Japan and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. It sets an average target of a 5 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2012 of emissions from power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources.

Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries like China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer.

On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 "major emitter" countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.

To try to spur global talks, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday's summit that "all the developed countries and the largest emitters" must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050.

Schwarzenegger told delegates that U.S. states are embracing emissions caps even if the Bush administration isn't. California's governor and legislature have approved a law requiring the state's industries to reduce greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020.