U.S. President George W. Bush stepped into the White House Rose Garden Wednesday to announce a new target in the fight against global warming.

He wants U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases to stop increasing by 2025.

U.S. President George W. Bush says his administration has taken a rational and balanced approach to the threat of climate change.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

Bush, who leaves office next January, again dismissed what he called "the flawed approach of the Kyoto Protocol."

The 1997 deal, which the United States did not ratify, calls on industrial countries to cut their emissions to an average five per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

It would have limited U.S. economic growth and shifted American jobs to other countries while letting new industrial powers such as China and India increase rather than reduce their emissions, Bush said.

He called for a new international deal "that includes the meaningful participation of every major economy and gives none a free ride."

Although Canada is a Kyoto signatory (with a target of six per cent below 1990 levels), Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejects the goal as unreachable. A federal plan announced last year sees Canada's emissions falling to 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020.