April 16 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush today set a goal for the U.S. to stop the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025, as he tries to head off more stringent measures from Congress and in international negotiations.

Emissions cuts and economic growth can be ``sensibly reconciled,'' Bush said in a speech from the White House Rose Garden. The U.S. and the rest of the world must move away from the ``flawed approach'' of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change when it expires in four years, he said.

``It is now time for the U.S. to look beyond 2012 and take the next step,'' Bush said. ``We're willing to include this plan in a binding international agreement, so long as our fellow major economies are prepared to include their plans in such an agreement.''

While the president's speech marks a shift in dealing with climate change by acknowledging the need to put curbs on heat- trapping gases, he didn't offer specific proposals for how to achieve the goals. Congressional Democrats and environmental groups criticized his proposal as falling short.

With nine months left in office, Bush has little time to influence the debate as U.S. lawmakers and governments of other nations move on efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions. The three candidates vying to be Bush's successor, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York, all support mandatory emissions limits.

After Bush

``President Bush's announcement will be soon forgotten,'' David Sandalow, an energy and global-warming expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said in an e-mailed statement. ``The most important decisions in the international global-warming negotiations will be made once President Bush leaves office.''

The president said he won't embrace any plan that would raise taxes, create duplicate mandates, or impose trade barriers. He also opposes measures that would penalize the use of coal or nuclear power, or set standards that could hurt the economy. He said power-plant emissions should be slowed so they peak over the next 10 to 15 years and decline thereafter.

Coal-fired power plants are responsible for 27 percent of U.S. global-warming emissions, according to the Energy Department.

Congressional Critics

Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said her panel will forge ahead on legislation.

``The president's plan to have America stand by while greenhouse gases reach dangerous levels and threaten America and the world is worse than doing nothing,'' Boxer said in a statement.

The Senate is considering a measure that would call for mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases. It would create a carbon- trading market of potentially $300 billion, setting a price for emissions from power plants, gas producers and petroleum importers.

The bill, sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and John Warner, a Virginia Republican, proposes cutting heat-trapping gases 63 percent by 2050 through pollution limits on utilities and large manufacturers.

Chances for Passage

Lieberman said in a Bloomberg Television interview that has a ``50-50 chance'' of passing this year. Bush's speech may help move the legislation along because it adds ``recognition that we have a problem and we have to do something about it.''

Daniel Lashof, a climate scientist at the Natural Resource Defense Council, said the president's proposal amounts to ``more delaying tactics.''

``Had he really embraced a meaningful program, he might have had an influence on the debate,'' Lashof said.

Bush's top environmental adviser, James Connaughton, and Dan Price of the White House National Security Council are heading to Paris for a meeting of representatives of the world's major economies for talks on climate change. They are setting an agenda for the Group of Eight industrial nations' summit in Japan. At that July meeting, countries would lay out their national goals.

``We are hopeful that the leaders of the major economies will be willing to make a commitment in principle that the national goals that they set will be reflected in the new agreement,'' Connaughton said in a briefing.

Other Countries

The president said he wants to make sure the world's major economies avoid putting the burden for cutting greenhouse gases on the U.S., the world's biggest economy, while emerging nations such as China and India aren't included in limits. Bush said that was behind his rejection of Kyoto when he took office and his efforts since then to create a new framework.

The impact of Kyoto ``would have been to limit our economic growth and shift American jobs to other countries while allowing major developing nations to increase their emissions,'' Bush said. ``Even if we reduced our own emissions to zero tomorrow, we would not make a meaningful dent in solving the problem without concerted action by all major economies.''

Bush also warned that court interpretations of the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act as they apply to climate change could affect or regulate schools, apartments, stores, shopping malls and hotels in ways that ``would have crippling effects on our entire economy.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at rrunningen@bloomberg.net; Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 16, 2008 21:20 EDT