WASHINGTON - Some of the world's biggest greenhouse polluters took aim at President George W. Bush on Friday, calling him "isolated" and questioning his leadership on the problem of global warming.
Bush, who convened the two-day meeting of the 17 biggest emitters of climate-warming gases, stressed new environmental technology and voluntary measures to tackle the issue.
"Our nations have an opportunity to leave the debates of the past behind and reach a consensus on the way forward and that's our purpose today," Bush told an audience that included delegates from Europe, Japan and Australia as well as fast-growing developing countries such as China and India.
But his speech did little to dampen doubts from participants and environmentalists that the climate session at the State Department would help advance crucial U.N. talks in Bali, Indonesia, in December.
"It is striking that the (Bush) administration at the moment in the international conversation seems to be pretty isolated," said John Ashton, Britain's climate envoy. "I think that the argument that we can do this through voluntary approaches is now pretty much discredited internationally."
Bush's rejection of mandatory limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that warm the planet is at odds with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and with many who attended on Friday.
"Our message to the U.S. is this: what they placed on the table at this meeting is a first step, but is simply not enough," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in a statement. "We think that the U.S. needs to go back to the drawing board."
The United States has long been the world's biggest greenhouse emitter but at least one study this year put China in the lead. Given the U.S. role in contributing to the problem, van Schalkwyk said the United States should contribute its "fair share" to a solution.
