WASHINGTON, Jan 22: Some of corporate America’s largest companies, including Alcoa, General Electric and DuPont, on Monday urged US President George Bush and the Congress to act swiftly to tackle global warming.

The chief executives of nine US corporations, who have formed the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), presented a united front as they urged Mr Bush to support mandatory caps on businesses' greenhouse gas emissions.

We should have goals that are visible, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt told reporters at a press conference at the National Press Club here.

The powerful USCAP coalition, whose members run dozens of industrial plants, also called for urgent US government action to implement a cap-and-trade program, which would enable the trading of emissions permits.

The corporate chieftains said cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists blame for global warming, make sense environmentally but now also make good business sense and would help the US cut its addiction to oil.

The corporations issued their call to arms a day before the US president makes his annual State of the Union speech. Some pundits believe Bush may address climate change in his remarks.

Bush has previously said that he does not support mandatory government emission caps on US industry and his administration in 2001 withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to curb greenhouse gases.

The Alcoa and GE chiefs, Alain Belda and Immelt respectively, were backed at the press conference by the CEOs of PG and E, Lehman Brothers, FPL Group, DuPont, Caterpillar, Duke Energy and PNM Resources.

The executives said they wanted other US firms to join their alliance.

The Texas-based utility TXU Corp. said in a statement that some of USCAP's aims were consistent with its position, and also expressed growing concern about climate change.

USCAP's members, who began meeting last summer, called on the new Democratic-controlled Congress to establish mandatory targets that would allow only a five percent rise in current US greenhouse gas emissions within five years of legislative action.Future targets should then seek to cut emissions to between 70 and 90 percent of today's levels within fifteen years, and emissions should be slashed by between 60 and 80 percent from current levels by 2050.

Immelt said information exchanges had occurred with the Bush administration over the group's proposals.

Asked by AFP if the White House was supportive of USCAP's position, Immelt replied:Yeah, but it's one of those things where you're going to have lots of different points of view.

But, in general I would say it's a friendly discussion, not an unfriendly discussion.USCAP also groups the non-governmental Environmental Defence group, the Natural Resources Defence Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the World Resources Institute.

Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew climate centre, said USCAP had briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers on their objectives.

Several bills have already been inked by Democratic lawmakers eager to address climate change since the party regained control of Congress this month.

—AFP