”Energy security and climate change are the two great challenges of our time,”  President George Bush told world leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., last month.  The Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change was the first of a series of meetings designed to set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that includes a role for developing countries.

The State Department said the purpose of these meetings is to “reinforce and accelerate discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” and help develop a global agreement by 2009.  New, detailed plans for reducing climate change are to be in place by 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol targets expire.

Nations participating at the meetings included Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the United States, as well as the European Union and United Nations.

The world’s major economies will be asked to take several steps, with particular emphasis on near-term research and development of clean-energy technologies.

Bush said nuclear energy is a key technology to combat climate change.

“We also need to take advantage of clean, safe nuclear power. Nuclear power is the one existing source of energy that can generate massive amounts of electricity without causing any air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions,” Bush said. “Without the world’s 439 nuclear power plants, there would be nearly 2 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere each year. And by expanding the use of nuclear power, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more.”