The chief of the world's top scientific body on climate change yesterday welcomed George W. Bush's turnround on global warming, while United Nations officials said the US president's plans for climate talks represented no conflict with the Kyoto protocol.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body made up of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the UN, rejected suggestions that Mr Bush's plan for a meeting of nations to discuss climate change would sideline talks on the protocol.