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 in the interview to be aired today.

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 favour of further studies of the phenomena -- despite significant global pressure that the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels change its policies.

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.