President [Bush] emerged from a weekend Camp David summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in a much stronger position to dictate the pace and direction of future negotiations over an international global warming treaty, some climate change experts and environmental leaders agreed yesterday.

A senior Japanese official, explaining Koizumi's position, said that although the Japanese leader recognizes the depth of Bush's opposition to the treaty, he believed they shared a common view on the seriousness of global warming. "So we would like to consult at a high level" to reach some common ground that would "respect the spirit -- the main fundamental elements -- in the Kyoto protocol," the official said.

Experts in the field say that by seemingly winning over Koizumi, Bush has managed to outflank the Europeans, who for months have harshly criticized him for rejecting the treaty without consulting with them. Yet the president is likely to come under mounting international pressure to provide more details of his alternative proposals and to explain how a voluntary approach to combating greenhouse gas emissions would work when voluntary efforts in the past have failed.