Bush to address global warming in annual speech

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush will outline a policy on global warming next week in his State of the Union speech but has not dropped his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House said on Tuesday.


"It's not accurate. It's wrong," White House spokesman Tony Snow said regarding media reports suggesting that Bush would agree to mandatory emissions caps in an effort to combat global warming. Such caps could require energy conservation and pollution curbs.

"If you're talking about enforceable carbon caps, in terms of industry-wide and nation-wide, we knocked that down. That's not something we're talking about," Snow said.

Britain's "The Observer" newspaper reported on Sunday that senior Downing Street officials, who were not named, said Bush was preparing to issue a changed climate policy during his annual State of the Union speech on January 23.