President Bush, in another stalling tactic today, called for international meetings on global warming that would not produce results until after the presidential election in 2008, in the final months of a lame-duck presidency.

This is not progress; this is politics at its worst. It’s a little like Lucy holding out the football for Charlie Brown. If President Bush were serious about this plan, he should have offered it six years ago when he rejected the Kyoto treaty, instead of walking away from the negotiating table altogether.

Another ill-timed meeting postpones needed action and just muddies the waters for the next President. The Bush administration has opposed efforts in Congress to tackle global warming, and now the President is interfering with international progress on a planetary climate crisis. An international negotiation process is already underway - the Framework Convention on Climate Change. President Bush can and must return to the negotiating table at any time.

The writing is on the wall that, once President Bush is out of office, America will move forward with a strong plan of action on global warming. Twenty major U.S. companies have joined with National Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups to call for a 60-80 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. And the major bipartisan initiatives in Congress would achieve similar emission reduction targets.

The President’s announcement comes in the face of pressure on global warming from other nations ahead of next week’s G8 meeting. The European Union is pushing for the G8 nations to acknowledge that we need to act quickly to cut global warming pollution and keep further temperatures from exceeding a threshold of four degrees Fahrenheit. This goal can be achieved by starting promptly to cut emissions and achieving a reduction of up to 80 percent by mid-century.