If President Bush requires any more proof that he sits on the wrong side of the global warming debate, he should listen to his own scientists. An internal draft of a report the administration will soon forward to the UN shows that his programme of voluntary reductions has done little to stop the rise in greenhouse gases generated in this country.

There is no sign that this report will alter Bush’s thinking; he contemptuously dismissed a similar report five years ago as bureaucratic boilerplate. But we are hopeful that it will add momentum to the bills circulating in Congress that would impose mandatory limits on these gases, a course Bush has opposed since renouncing his own 2000 campaign pledge to do just that.

An effect measure will require a programme of carbon controls at home and a good deal of persuasion and technological change abroad, especially in China, which will soon overtake the US as the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

We have long lamented that Bush seems happy bringing up the rear of a parade he ought to be leading. His lack of leadership is all the more noticeable now that so many prominent figures in government and business have joined in. Bush should change his mind on carbon emissions. The world will thank him for doing so.