Mixed reaction to Bush energy plan

OSLO, Finland (Reuters) — President George W. Bush’s call to break a U.S. addiction to oil is a step to curb global warming but does not herald conversion to a U.N.-led plan to slow climate change, experts said on Wednesday.

Bush said in his State of the Union address that he would seek to break dependence on Middle East oil via new technologies and jack up funding on energy sources including coal and nuclear power as well as wind and solar power, hydrogen and ethanol.

“This is fairly positive … the very mention of solar, wind and other clean energies is a huge step,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany which accuses Bush of doing too little to stop global warming.

Bush argued that the United States would improve its national security by cutting what he called an addiction to oil, often imported from unstable parts of the world. He also said the plan would “improve the environment.”

Reuters