The White House convened a two-day conference of the world’s major greenhouse-gas-emitting nations here on Thursday that served to highlight how isolated the Bush administration is on the issue of global warming. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that climate change was a real global problem, and that the United States was a major contributor. She said the United States was willing to lead the international effort to reduce emissions of gases that had led to the warming of the planet, with the attendant ill effects. But she repeated President Bush’s insistence that the solution could not starve emerging economies of fuel or slow the growth of the advanced nations. “Every country will make its own decisions,” she said, “reflecting its own needs and interests.”
Mr. Bush is scheduled to address the meeting on Friday.
Many delegates from the 16 nations at the conference expressed skepticism about the administration’s motives, fearing that Mr. Bush was trying to derail a global emissions-reduction program managed by the United Nations. European delegates, in particular, rejected the administration’s insistence that any plan to reduce emissions be voluntary and devised by individual nations rather than as a part of a worldwide treaty. One European representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not wish to publicly embarrass the host, called the meeting a “game” played by the administration to slow momentum toward an international pact.
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