Bush shifts global warming stance

In a striking reversal, the Bush administration has acknowledged that global warming is a significant problem, rather than merely "an issue". It also accepts that the burning of fossil fuels by human beings, first and foremost by American human beings, is the prime cause.

The admission – a first for the White House, which has so far rejected the Kyoto Treaty's stipulation that the emission of greenhouse gases must be cut – comes in a report to the United Nations setting out the impact of global warming on the US itself.

The changes are likely to include more extreme weather, such as droughts and wildfires, storms and flooding across the country, as well as the disappearance of eco-systems such as alpine meadows in the Rockies and certain forest types in the southern part of the US. However, forest growth in northern parts of the country may accelerate, and as a result of longer growing seasons food production in some regions may grow.

The report, White House officials stress, does not signify a Damascene conversion that will turn Mr Bush's environmental policy on its head. Nor will it mean an overnight change to the habits of a country that accounts for 5 per cent of the world's population but creates 25 per cent of the emissions that cause global warming.

Entitled US Climate Action Report 2002, the study concludes that Washington can do nothing to mitigate the effects of the pollutants that are already in the atmosphere. In other words, the report fails to challenge the administration's basic position that climate change is inevitable, and that the most sensible approach is not to try to fight it, but to adapt to it.

Nor does it contradict Mr Bush's controversial "clear skies" policy of voluntary restraint and fiscal incentives for cleaner technology, which fails to address the problem of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.