It had been reported at the weekend that President Bush was finally about to make a policy-shift signalling that the threat posed by climate change was being taken seriously after strong pressure from the likes of Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

British and European newspapers claimed that in is State of the Union address, Bush would announce a carbon capping and trading programme for the United States.

However, the White House today disappointed the hopes of environmentalists by pooh-poohing the rumours. Spokesman Tony Snow said, “I want to walk you back from the whole carbon cap story…The carbon cap stuff is not accurate. It’s wrong.”

Mr Snow said that instead of specific commitments to carbon trading or emissions cuts, “What the president has talked about all along is the importance of innovation,” all of which could only be “consistent with economic growth”.

Meanwhile John McCain and Barack Obama, two possible 2008 Presidential candidates, were among senators who last Friday launched an initiative that would force American businesses to cut emissions to one third of their 2000 levels by 2050.

Click here for Will Ferrell’s take on Bush’s global warming policy