Bush, in Sydney, urges trade, climate talks

< Prev | 1 | 2

NBC Video: Politics

Will the GOP play dirty to the end?
Dec. 21: John Stanton, reporter for Roll Call, talks with Rachel Maddow about whether Congressional Republicans intend to continue their obstruction and stall tactics despite the apparent inevitability of the passage of a health reform bill.

Progressives position on health reform

GOP weilds filibuster as a weapon

Thomas Friedman on Copenhagen

Palin: 'chnge4 ions'

Senate health vote schedule

The decade's Top 10 statewide races

Creator of public option endorses bill

Slideshow

The Week in Political Cartoons
Msnbc.com’s political cartoonists take a look back at the past week.

more photos

Kyoto pact a hot topic
Bush has been criticized by environmentalists and others for his opposition to the 1997 Kyoto pact, and China has long been slammed for the huge amounts of greenhouse gases its power plants and industries pump into the atmosphere. The fact that neither China nor India, another major global polluter, were covered by Kyoto was one reason Bush has opposed it.

But both leaders seemed to be generally in agreement on the subject.

"We believe that the issue of climate change bears on the welfare of the whole humanity and sustainable development of the whole world," Hu told reporters after his meeting with Bush. "And this issue should be appropriately tackled through stronger international cooperation."

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Climate control has been designated a top agenda item for this year's APEC meeting.

"We talked about climate change and our desire to work together on climate change," Bush said.

Bush has proposed eliminating tariffs on environmental and clean-energy technologies. In his talks with Hu, Bush invited the Chinese leader to consider doing the same, said Dan Price, a presidential economic adviser on the National Security Council.

Hu had suggested the United Nations should be the one to spearhead climate control efforts. Price said that wasn't necessarily contradictory with the Bush approach.

Bush said he accepted Hu's invitation to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics. And the two leaders talked about establishing a hot line like the longtime one between Washington and Moscow to alert each other to possible military situations that might seem threatening or be ambiguous.