PRESIDENT Clinton moved late last night to defuse anger among many delegates attending this week's special UN session reviewing progress since the Earth Summit with a speech pledging that the US would take action to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions.
He also announced a federal aid programme to install solar panels on 1 million roofs in the US to cut the country's voracious consumption of fossil fuels which has made it the world's biggest emitter of carbon-dioxide.
Mr Clinton attempted to capture a share of the moral high ground by pointing to the tough new limits he had announced on Wednesday for air pollution caused by soot and ground-level ozone, in the teeth of strenuous opposition from US industrial interests. However, a main feature of the measures is the flexibility in phasing them in over 10 years.
The President also pleaded for time in curbing carbon-dioxide emissions which, he agreed, were causing climate change. He said the US had "much more to do" in this area.
While he applauded the EU for its "strong focus on this issue", he did not mention its target to reduce emissions by 15 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2010. However, he said the US would propose "realistic and binding limits" at the Kyoto conference in December.
In the meantime, Mr Clinton is to convene a White House conference on climate change to "convince the American people and Congress" that the problem is "real and imminent". He would also be playing a "critical role" in the urgent search for new technologies.
To help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, he announced that the US would provide them with $1 billion in assistance over the next five years.
Earlier, US environmental groups - deeply embarrassed by the failure of their President to commit himself to specific targets and timetables to reduce these emissions in the US - held a rally to call for more decisive leadership from the White House.
As the temperature again touched 32C, with 80 per cent humidity, Mr John Passacantando executive director of Ozone Action, warned that if nothing was done the Earth's average temperature would rise by another two degrees.
He said it was "shocking" that leadership from the US could be so lacking" and blamed this on the "oil and coal giants, particularly in Washington DC", which were handing around money".
Mr Bill McKibben, author off The End of Nature, a book on global warming, said this week's hot weather in New York was "just the beginning". Before too long, the number of days when the temperature exceeded 32C would rise from 15 per year to 48.
"The Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned and history has held him up to ridicule for that ever since. President Clinton can go one better: this administration has fiddled around while the entire planet has cooked," said Mr McKibben.
Mr Adam Werbach (24), leader of the Sierra Club, the US's largest grassroots environmental organisation, said both Mr Clinton and Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, "need stand up and make it clear that the US will not be the embarrassment to the world that it is right now Mr Seva Persad (16), of Global Kids, a volunteer group of New York high school students working to improve the environment, said: "If we make a commitment to do something, we do it. When is the President going to step up and follow our example?"
