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Bush readies speech on climate change
Chris Baltimore, Reuters
U.S.President George W. Bush's annual speech to Congress next week is likely to call for a massive increase in U.S. ethanol usage and tweak climate change policy while stopping short of mandatory emissions caps, sources familiar with White House plans said on Tuesday.

Bush's annual State of the Union address is expected to touch on key energy policy points, after Bush made the surprise pronouncement during last year's address that the United States is addicted to Middle East crude oil supplies.
(16 Jan 2007)

Bush Set for Climate Change U-turn
Guardian via Buzzle.com
Downing Street says that belated US recognition of global warming could lead to a post-Kyoto agreement on curbing emissions.
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George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.

Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United States will lead to a breakthrough in international talks on climate change and that the outlines of a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement, the deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases which expires in 2012, could now be thrashed out at the G8 summit in June.

The timetable may explain why Blair is so keen to remain in office until after the summit, with a deal on protecting the planet offering an appealing legacy with which to bow out of Number 10.

Bush and Blair held private talks on climate change before Christmas, and there is a feeling that the US President will now agree a cap on emissions in the US, meaning that, for the first time, American industry and consumers would be expected to start conserving energy and curbing pollution.
(13 Jan 2007)
Don't hold your breath. No, hold your breath. -AF

White House denies climate change U-turn
Caroline Daniel, Financial Times
The White House on Tuesday denied it was planning a U-turn on its climate change policy by embracing a system of formal caps on greenhouse emissions, despite rising pressure from European governments to change its stance.

Although energy security will be a key theme in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address next week, the White House issued an unusually public rebuttal of rumours about its climate change policy. Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said: “I want to walk you back from the whole carbon cap story...The carbon cap stuff is not accurate. It’s wrong.”
(16 Jan 2007)
Press Briefing by Tony Snow.