INTERVIEW-U.S. carbon market inevitable-EU's Dimas

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. market in greenhouse gases is inevitable and President George W. Bush should embrace trading now, so as to sharpen U.S. efforts to slow global warming, European Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on Thursday.

Dimas also told Reuters on the sidelines of a 17-nation climate conference in Paris that a plan by Bush unveiled on Wednesday to cap rising U.S. emissions in 2025 recognised a need for ceilings but was not ambitious enough.

"I ask myself why the president does not accept the importance of a cap and trade system at the federal level," he said. "And to start working on it now."

"It's inevitable...The moment that the next administration comes in it will introduce a cap and trade system anyway. Congress is discussing it," he said.

If Congress imposed capping and trading it could quickly impose a ceiling on U.S. emissions that would be achieved only in 2025 under Bush's plan, he added.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all favour building a "cap and trade" system that would issue big polluters such as oil companies and power producers permits to emit carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.

Under such a system, companies that exceed their emissions limits must buy more permits to pollute, while those that come in beneath their limits may sell the permits on a market. An EU market covers more than 10,000 industrial sites.

Dimas said that scientific evidence of the risks of global warming, such as more powerful storms, floods, crop failures and rising sea levels, seemed to be getting stronger.