President Bush has announced he will host talks with government leaders on climate change [news search] some three days after the United Nations holds crucial climate talks in September. Leading economic powers and carbon emitters from the industrialized and developing world [more | more2] have been invited from September 27-28 to discuss reducing carbon emissions. Golly. If the Bush administration really has had a change of heart on the need for mandatory carbon and other greenhouse gas emission reductions, it would be fantastic. I would not hold my breathe however. This administration has been criminally negligent in not only pulling the United States out of productively participating in international climate talks and agreements; but has sought to obstruct progress by the rest of the world as well. Reneging on pledge to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, withdrawing from Kyoto, censoring U.S. government climate scientists, gutting air pollution and other environmental laws — this President will go down in history as being horrendously criminally negligent on environmental issues. His only hope to prove he is genuine is to move past voluntary approaches and commit to moving the world towards equitable mandatory emissions cuts. Anything else is continued criminally negligent climate obstruction.