Bush mulls carbon cap climb down

President George W Bush will today deliver a major speech on US climate change policy in which he is expected to confound many of his environmental critics and set out specific goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and plans for capping emissions from power plants.

Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, said yesterday that the president would not lay out a detailed plan for cutting emissions, but will set "an intermediate goal that will lead to a long-term goal".

The speech is also expected to include plans to cap emissions from power plants and other large polluters as a pre-cursor to a US cap-and-trade scheme similar to that already under way in Europe.

The announcements come as politicians gather in Paris for the third in the US-organised major polluters summits, which are designed to run parallel to the UN negotiations to find a successor to Kyoto. Fratto said that the president's speech would "make a commitment" to other nations that the US is serious about cutting emissions.

Plans for a cap-and-trade scheme for fixed location polluters could also serve to appease US lawmakers who are currently considering proposals in the Lieberman-Warner bill for a nationwide cap-and-trade scheme.

It has been widely expected that Bush will block the bill if it was passed and consequently today's announcement could be interpreted as an attempt to convince senators that the White House does remain committed to cutting emissions.

Even ahead of the speech, environmentalists again condemned the Bush administration for not going far enough to cut emisssions. However, political observers said that the adoption of a specific emissions goal, albeit in the form of a voluntary target, further underlined the White House's growing realisation that further climate change legislation is required.