Climate Negotiators Eye 2008 Elections

K.C. Golden, policy director of Climate Solutions, left, Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner, second from left, and former vice president Al Gore, right, applaud as Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., center, is introduced Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006 at a panel discussion on alternative energy sources and global warming on the campus of Seattle University in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) (Ted S. Warren - AP)

"President Bush is dedicated to advancing technologies and harnessing the power of the markets to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases and opposes any program that could hurt the economy or simply shift emissions overseas," said Kristen Hellmer.

The U.S. administration says emission caps would damage the energy-intensive U.S. economy, and says it has devoted $29 billion over five years to research on climate and on clean-energy technology.

"There is no one-size-fits-all approach to climate change," lead U.S. climate negotiator Paula Dobriansky told The Associated Press.

Referring to bilateral deals worked out with China and others, the undersecretary of state said Washington "is committed to collaborative partnerships that advance economic growth and the development and deployment of clean, efficient energy technologies."

The Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 annex to the 189-nation U.N. climate treaty, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

At the two-week annual treaty conference, opening Nov. 6 in Nairobi and drawing up to 6,000 participants, the 165 nations that have ratified Kyoto will resume their talks on what regime of quotas and timetables should succeed that agreement after 2012.

On a "second track," meanwhile, all climate treaty nations, including the United States, are more broadly discussing ways to confront global warming. In both forums, a central subject is when and how to control emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.

Cutajar, refereeing the post-2012 talks, said the Nairobi meeting won't produce "numbers," that is, a concrete plan.

The Kyoto countries "won't sign up to a new set of numbers until they see what is happening around them, and that includes not just developing countries, but the United States," he said.