House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged international cooperation in tackling climate change at a meeting Tuesday with Chancellor Angela Merkel, who plans to push President Bush at next week's Group of Eight summit for action to fight global warming.

Pelosi, who opposes Bush on environmental policy, hailed Merkel's "extraordinary leadership" in fighting climate change and agreed "that these solutions must be multilateral."

"We are trying to preserve the planet, which many in our country, including I, believe is God's creation, and we have a responsibility to preserve it," Pelosi said, speaking alongside the German leader after a meeting at the chancellery.

Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been more blunt, voicing regret after he met Pelosi on Monday at the difficulty of achieving "concrete results" with the Bush administration.

"I think that what we could achieve is at least a mandate for negotiations - a clear mandate - for the climate conference" later this year in Bali, Indonesia, which is set to consider future action against global warming, Gabriel told ARD television.

"The United States is rejecting that as well, so far," he said, but "if we could achieve that, then I think Heiligendamm would have achieved a breakthrough."

The U.S. refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting emissions because developing countries were not included. Rising economic giants, China and India, are exempt, and the treaty says nothing about post-2012 cuts.

Bush has argued that Kyoto would harm the U.S. economy and unfairly excludes developing countries such as China and India from obligations.

Pelosi has disagreed with that decision on Kyoto, but has said she wants to work with the Bush administration rather than provoke it. On the way to Europe, her delegation stopped in Greenland and saw the effects of global warming firsthand, she said.

In fact, we need a 60% cut in emissions by 2050, so we're told. This is something like 1.3% per year.

How are we going to do that?

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year even as the economy grew, according to an initial estimate released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.

The 1.3 percent drop in CO{-2} emissions...

Do you think it might be a wise idea to copy what they're doing?

INDIA says it will reject proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions at a summit meeting of the world's leading economies next month because stricter limits would slow its booming economy.

“Legally mandated measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on GDP growth of developing countries, including India,” environment ministry secretary Pradipto Ghosh said.

“This in turn will have serious implications for our poverty alleviation programs,” he said.

“Legal mandates on greenhouse gas mitigation in any form will impact our growth, and this is not the path we wish to pursue.”

Beijing voiced reluctance Monday to accept far-reaching cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

In the German city of Hamburg, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said China was a developing nation and suggested it was up to rich nations to shoulder the cuts.

The Kyoto Protocol, first signed in 1997, created a system of financial incentives for doing this.

Although Russia ratified Kyoto in 2004, the government now looks to be reneging on its commitments. Mironov’s speech made that clear.

Poland and the Czech Republic said Friday they would appeal an EU decision sharply cutting their carbon dioxide emission quotas for 2008-2012 for industries with high energy consumption.

The two former members of the Soviet bloc, now both in the EU, decided to follow their fellow EU member Slovakia, which announced in February it would appeal to the European Court of Justice against the ruling.