Binding emission targets need to include India, China: Bush

LONDON: Any binding emission targets to tackle the pressing issue of climate change facing the world would have to include India and China to be 'workable', US President George W Bush has said.

Acknowledging that his refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol once created consternation in Europe, Bush said there was now a recognition that richer countries needed to "transfer out of the hydro-carbon economy".

"However, any binding emission targets will have to include China and India to be workable," Bush told 'The Times' daily in an interview published on Wednesday.

Besides, he admitted that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a 'guy really anxious for war' in Iraq and said his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

Bush expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric."

Phrases such as "bring them on" or "dead or alive", he said, "indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace." He said he found it very painful "to put youngsters in harm's way".

"I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possible can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."