Bush told Britain's ITV television ahead of the July 6-8 gathering that global warming was "a significant, long-term issue that we've got to deal with".

However, any G8 climate change agreement at this week's G8 summit in Scotland along the lines of the of the UN's Kyoto Protocol - which the United States refused to sign - would get short shrift, he said.

Instead he offered up new technology as the way forward.

"If this (draft plans under negotiation) looks like Kyoto, the answer is no," Bush said. "The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt."

The Kyoto Protocol requires industrialised countries that have ratified it to limit their emissions by a 2012 timeframe as compared to a 1990 benchmark.

The president has strongly opposed action against climate change since he took office in 2001 in favor of further studies of the phenomena - despite significant global pressure that the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels change its policies.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who hosts the three-day gathering by Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United States starting Wednesday, wants to secure deals on climate change as well as African aid and debt.

French President Jacques Chirac said Sunday he was optimistic a deal on climate change could be struck at the summit following informal talks with the German and Russian leaders in Russia.

"We are waiting to know the American position, which was ... far more moderate, or less demanding than ours. I hope we can find a sufficiently clear, firm agreement in this field," said Chirac.

Negotiators for the G8 countries are reportedly drawing up draft plans on climate change.

The US president said he wanted G8 leaders to put Kyoto behind them and move on to supporting new technologies to limit global warming without harming businesses.

Bush underlined the US government's 20-billion-dollar (16.7 billion euros) investment in technologies such as zero-emission power stations and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

"I think you can grow your economy and at the same time do a better job of harnessing greenhouse gases," he said. "That's exactly what I intend to talk to our partners about.

"My hope is - and I think the hope of Tony Blair is - to move beyond the Kyoto debate and to collaborate on new technologies.

These would "enable the United States and other countries to diversify away from fossil fuels so that the air will be cleaner and that we have the economic and national security that comes from less dependence on foreign sources of oil," he said.

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