June 6 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's chief environmental adviser said he expects the Group of Eight summit will endorse the administration's call for new talks on setting limits for greenhouse gas emissions.

James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, reiterated today the U.S. will hold firm in opposing any final statement from the summit that includes setting targets for emissions cuts because developing economies, such as India and China, haven't been brought into the process.

Addressing global warming is at the top of the agenda for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is the host for the meeting at the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.

``We're down to a few remaining items,'' Connaughton said of negotiations as the summit got under way. He dismissed suggestions that Bush and Merkel have ``competing visions'' on the way forward. ``The opposite is the case,'' he said.

The U.S. is ``not alone'' in opposing Merkel's proposal to set a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), Connaughton said. Russia, Japan and Canada side with the U.S. on the issue, he said.

`Decisive Action' Needed

Writing in today's edition of the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Merkel called for ``decisive action on the part of the international community'' in Heiligendamm to combat global warming.

``The acceleration in climate change is a serious threat. If we don't halt it, there will be massive environmental problems and considerable economic burdens,'' Merkel wrote.

A week ago, Bush softened his stand against broad targets for emissions cuts and proposed the world's 15 biggest polluters to enter talks starting this fall aimed at setting goals for limiting greenhouse gases.

Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam-based Institute for Climate Research and Merkel's climate-policy adviser yesterday called Bush's initiative, ``almost a complete about-turn'' in U.S. policy and said it doesn't undermine Merkel's plan.

``We must now take advantage of the positive signals from the U.S. proposal,'' Schellnhuber, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, said in an interview in Berlin.

UN Framework

An official from U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair's office who briefed reporters said that while the negotiations on climate change have been difficult, Bush's proposal may help the process because it aligns with the European stance on several issues and acknowledges that action must be taken.

The U.K. and Germany will hold firm on eventually setting a fixed goal on emissions and winning an agreement on establishing a so-called cap-and-trade system that will allow industries to buy or sell credits on emissions, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Connaughton denounced what he called ``the fixation on one particular target and on one particular goal,'' and urged critics to focus on ``the big picture.''

Bush intends the talks he is proposing will eventually become a part of a United Nations framework, he said. That is one of the primary objectives of Merkel and Blair.

``What we are doing is we're trying to find a place to have a focused conversation among the big emitters that we can then bring to the UN process,'' he said. ``This will help advance the discussions at the UN.''

The opening of the G-8 meeting was marked by protests that forced police to close off both entrances to the summit site and shut down rail service.

Several thousand demonstrators marched to the fence that surrounds Heiligendamm and police used tear gas and water cannon to drive them back. The leaders who arrived today were being shuttled into the city by helicopter from the airport in Rostock.

To contact the reporters on this story: Edwin Chen in Rostock, Germany, at echen32@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: June 6, 2007 06:58 EDT