Bush to set 'realistic' goals to combat global warming

Bush will speak from the Rose Garden, calling for a general strategy to address climate change rather than a specific proposal to address emissions by industries, motor vehicles and other sources frequently cited in the debate over rising world temperatures.

"The president will frame the debate for the right and wrong ways to do it," Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto said.

The president has placed his greatest emphasis on using technology -- for instance, reducing reliance on gasoline by developing hydrogen-fueled engines for cars -- to combat global warming, and has long opposed government mandates that would order consumers and companies to reduce their appetites for oil or other fossil fuels.

Bush, who has been criticized for inaction on what is widely seen as one of the most crucial issues facing the world, is seeking to set the boundaries for a debate occurring across multiple fronts, and which threatens to spiral beyond the administration's control.

Last June, on the eve of a major international summit that would focus on climate issues, Bush proposed that the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations that produce 85% of the greenhouse gas emissions initiate a campaign to limit the gases and set long-term goals for their reductions. He set the end of his term as a target for establishing those goals.

Those nations will meet in Paris on Thursday and Friday. Bush's new proposal is intended to demonstrate that the U.S. is making an effort to tackle the issue in the near future while the international efforts focus on the longer term.

The negotiations among the major emitters of greenhouse gases are intended to move beyond the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires 37 industrialized nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5% from 1990 levels by 2012.

The U.S. never ratified the agreement, but the Bush administration joined in December with nearly 200 other nations in a pledge to reach a new agreement by the end of 2009.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has called for Senate action on climate change and has scheduled debate on legislative remedies for the first week in June.