President George W. Bush, who rejected the 1997 Kyoto protocol on global warming shortly after taking office in January 2001, said the initiative was based on voluntary efforts of 12 industrial sectors under the aegis of the Business Roundtable.

"These initiatives are a first step in what we expect to be an ongoing engagement with these and other sectors of our economy in the years ahead," Bush said in a statement.

"The United States is taking prudent steps to address the long-term challenge of global climate change."

The Business Roundtable plan calls on electric utilities, refiners and other industry sectors to cut emissions linked to global warming.

"Every company in every sector of the economy has a role in helping control greenhouse gas emissions," said E. Linn Draper, a Roundtable member and president and CEO of American Electric Power.

"The Business Roundtable's Climate RESOLVE initiative demonstrates our resolve to address global climate change."

But environmental groups said the plan was merely window dressing, and said the overall Bush administration goal, touted as a global 18 percent cut in "intensity" of emissions would mean an increase of about 19 percent of carbon dioxide global warming pollution.

"These voluntary agreements will do nothing more than provide the Bush Administration and the most polluting industries with political cover in the fight to stop Congress from acting on global warming," said Philip Clapp of the National Environmental Trust.

"It's not hard to get industries to sign up to increase their emissions for another decade, which is what the president's plan does."

The Bush administration says mandatory emission caps called for in the Kyoto treaty would impose harsh costs on US firms. Under the agreement, industrialized countries would be committed to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by 2012.

SPACE.WIRE