Even if the U.S. does put in place a domestic system, "ensuring that the biggest emitters meet their commitments would still be a monumental task," the report's authors conclude. "Even as the United States pursues ambitious and mandatory policies at home, it should not sign on to an emissions cap as part of any global deal that does not include strong commitments to actions from the major emerging economies."

The report suggests that the U.S. form a "Partnership for Climate Cooperation," which would bring together the world's largest carbon-emitters, outside the United Nations process. This would include the same nations as Bush's "Major Emitters" summits, but with different goals -- as we know, Bush has long-opposed mandatory emissions cuts.

It also indicates that the "Clean Development Mechanism" created by the Kyoto Protocol to fund clean-energy projects in developing countries be vastly improved and better-targeted at nations where it could have the greatest impact.

Among the issues raised in the report that are likely to be most contentious is the idea that the U.S. should encourage rapidly developing countries to increase their use of nuclear power to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Task force member Aimee Christensen, of Christensen Global Strategies, called the support for nuclear power "unwarranted" in a dissenting statement included with the report. "The report rightly notes that this support is preconditioned on the economic competitiveness of nuclear power as well as a strong nonproliferation regime, but fails to also condition it on finding solutions for waste disposal," she writes.

United Nations Foundation President Timothy Wirth and James Wolfensohn, chairman of the private investment firm Wolfensohn & Company and former president of the World Bank Group, submitted a joint dissent questioning the idea of a separate major emitters partnership outside of the United Nations. The two worried that it would "detract" form the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change process.