Bush Says Global Climate Change 'Serious' Problem

CLIMATE SCIENCE

"We lead the world when it comes to dollars spent, millions spent on research about climate change," the US president said.

Washington (AFP) Jun 07, 2005
US President George W. Bush said Tuesday that global climate change is a "serious long term" problem and insisted that the United States, which rejected the Kyoto protocol, was leading research into finding solutions.

Climate change was one of the key issues to be raised by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a summit with Bush at the White House.

Bush told a press conference afterwards, "I've always said it's a serious long long-term issue that needs to be dealt with, and my administration isn't waiting around to deal with the issue.

"We lead the world when it comes to dollars spent, millions spent on research about climate change," the US president said.

"We want to know more about it. It's easier to solve a problem when you know a lot about it."

The United States has been widely criticised for withdrawing from a commitment to ratify the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which set targets for reducing pollution that causes global warming.

But Bush said that the United States will have to change its high energy consuming habits and move away from "a hydrocarbon society".

He said he hoped gas-guzzling American drivers would turn to alternatives such as hydrogen fuel powered cars.

"Our country is going to have to diversify away from the type of automobiles we drive. It's beginning to happen here. We'll have more fuel cells, cars driven by fuel cells on the road next year than the past year, and more after that. We're beginning to change."

Bush also said the United States was spending a lot of money on producing coal that creates less pollution.

"That's going to be very important for a country like ours and a country like China. And one of the issues we've got to figure out how to deal with is how we share that technology with developing nations."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

CLIMATE SCIENCE

Climate: Ocean Warming Supports Models

Boulder (UPI) June 6, 2005
Clear evidence of human-produced warming in the oceans verifies some of the most important predictions of climate models, suggesting it is time for action instead of argument about the existence of greenhouse warming, according to a paper by Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists.