The United States on Tuesday staked out its position ahead of a climate change summit next month by endorsing new technologies, paid for by rapid economic growth, as the way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The United States opposes mandatory economy-wide caps to cut emissions, saying this would crimp growth, but President George W. Bush has invited leading countries to Washington on Sept. 27-28 to work on a long-term goal plan to tackle global warming.
"The emerging consensus is that the solution to climate change is the advancement of technology," James Connaughton, Bush's senior environmental adviser, told reporters.
"And there is also consensus that you need growing economies to pay for that technology. These are not a trade-off: if you don't have a growing economy, you don't have the resources to pay for the new new technologies," he added.
Connaughton, who has been in Beijing to prepare for the Washington talks and a preceding Asia-Pacific summit in Sydney, said he was encouraged by what he called a very significant shift on environmental policy in recent years in China.
"This is wonderful to see, and America stands ready to assist on technology, to assist in innovative financing and assist in standards and practices so that together we can grow our economies ... in a more sustainable way," he said.
China, like the United States, is outside the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing carbon emissions. Negotiators will meet in Bali in December to see whether progress can be made towards replacing the pact, which expires in 2012. Washington signed the Protocol but did not ratify it.
