Gore: Bush should follow Reagan's lead on climate

By Jeff Mason

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush should follow the example set by Ronald Reagan in supporting efforts to protect the ozone layer by showing leadership in the fight against global warming, Al Gore said on Wednesday.

Speaking before a two-day climate conference in Washington called by Bush, the former vice president urged the White House to accept binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide, or CO2, and other greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating the Earth.

"I ... call on President Bush to follow President Reagan's example and listen to those among his advisers who know that we need to have binding reductions in CO2," Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to Bush, said at former President Bill Clinton's annual philanthropic summit, the Global Clinton Initiative.

"We have to put a price on carbon, and the United States of America has to lead the world to solve the climate crisis," he said.

Gore, who was Clinton's vice president for eight years, has made global warming his signature issue since his 2000 electoral defeat.

Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States signed during Clinton's term but was never ratified by Congress, saying it unfairly excluded big developing countries like China and India from emissions curbs and posed a threat to the U.S. economy.

Gore said Bush should emulate Reagan, a fellow Republican, who as president signed the U.N. Montreal Protocol to eliminate hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs, ozone-depleting substances that are also potent greenhouse gases. A global deal to phase out those substances earlier than planned was struck last week.

Europe wants the United States and other big greenhouse gas emitters to agree to mandatory emissions cuts under a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. A meeting to start negotiations on a new pact is scheduled for December in Bali.

The Washington climate conference has been touted as a run-up to the Bali event, although environmentalists view it with skepticism because of Bush's record and concerns he might try to circumvent U.N. efforts. The White House has denied that is the intention of the Washington conference.