European environmental leaders doubt President Bush will make a 180-degree turnaround on his voluntary approach to curbing global warming just because they´re in town.

But they figure pressure from U.S. businesses, advocacy groups, Congress, Kyoto Protocol signers and the developing world might force him to reconsider his conservation legacy now that his second term has dwindled to 15-plus months. Never mind, they pointed out, that summer heat melted the Arctic Ocean ice cap to its tiniest-ever recorded size and each successive United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report makes it clearer that burning of fossil fuels is forcing the temperature up.

During what pundits have dubbed climate diplomacy week, officials from the European Commission, Denmark, Germany, Portugal and France met with six senators Tuesday to encourage Congress to meet its obligation as a world leader by adopting mandatory regulations on heat-trapping gases.

Their exchange was sandwiched between two other highly anticipated climate change events. On Monday at the United Nations in New York, luminaries such as Al Gore and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mingled with leaders from 80 countries during an unprecedented summit focused on cooling a warming planet. Bush was a no-show but he did schedule a post-gathering visit with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The president had already invited 16 "major emitters" to a Thursday and Friday meeting at the White House. That agenda includes low-carbon power generation, vehicle and fuel technology and bumping up wind, solar and nuclear power. Environmental organizations and legislators such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., are annoyed that a mandatory cap and trade program for emitters isn´t on Bush´s table.

Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Department, told the European leaders Tuesday that she was envious of their ability to come to a consensus about global warming, and act upon it. Europe has pledged to reduce its carbon footprint 20 percent by 2020.

"We´re getting a bit impatient," Connie Hedegaard of Denmark said about U.S. foot-dragging. "The science tells us we have to move."

A bipartisan, economy-wide cap and trade bill is expected to begin moving through Boxer´s committee in early October, committee staffers said after Tuesday´s meeting. Boxer´s intent is to prepare the bill for Senate floor action by the end of the year. First, fellow committee members Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., have to introduce the bill they co-wrote this summer.

"This is not going to be easy," Lieberman said, adding that today, Bush certainly wouldn´t sign any legislation approved by Congress, but that could change by 2008. "This is a complicated problem."

Local communities and states are way ahead of the Congress on the global warming front," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said in praising Portland, Ore., New England and California for their emissions initiatives.

"Voluntary has good intentions but it doesn´t work," Kerry said. "This is going to be a full-court press. We´re going to get this done."

Discussions of a different sort are proceeding in the House. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., is floating a carbon tax plan. A proposal the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee circulated Thursday laid out plans for: a 50 cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline and jet fuel to be phased in over 5 years; a $50-per-ton tax on greenhouse gases released from combustion of coal, natural gas and petroleum; and eliminating the interest tax deduction on home mortgages for homes 4,200 square feet or larger.

Dingell has said he is not opposed to a cap and trade system. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., leader of the House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, and his staff are collaborating with the White House on such a bill.

European officials stressed the importance of proceeding as the world prepares for December´s annual climate treaty conference in Bali, Indonesia. That´s where leaders will continue negotiating an emissions-reduction agreement to follow the Kyoto pact when it expires in 2012.

The United States and Australia snubbed Kyoto in 1997. It calls on 36 industrialized nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by roughly 5 percent.

Sigmar Gabriel of Germany emphasized that China and India would be more apt to act if the United States does. He stressed the importance of collaborating on a U.N. effort to avoid a hodgepodge approach.

"It´s important," said Artur Runge-Metzger the European Commission´s climate change specialist, "for the president to make up his mind, and decide what he wants to leave as his legacy."

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