President Bush on Wednesday proposed a new target for stopping the growth of U.S. emissions tied to global warming by 2025, but environmental groups were quick to criticize the stand as merely undercutting stronger proposals in Congress and by several states.

The president called developing new technolgies the key to curbing greenhouse gas emissions over the long term, and added that coal-fired  power plants could do their part by slowing emissions’ growth a bit faster than the 2025 goal.

“To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter,” Bush said in a speech made at the White House.

“By doing so, we will reduce emission levels in the power sector well below where they were projected to be when we first announced our climate strategy in 2002,” Bush said. “There are a number of ways to achieve these reductions, but all responsible approaches depend on accelerating the development and deployment of new technologies.”

Bush’s cautious gambit falls far short of European goals and comes as Congress is about to consider more ambitious targets and ahead of international climate change negotiations in Paris.

The Sierra Club was among the activists to challenge Bush, noting that some scientists feel global emissions should be cut by 20 percent by 2020. “Merely halting the growth of emissions is grossly insufficient,” it stated.

“The president is throwing a Hail Mary to polluters in a last-ditch effort to stave off any meaningful action on global warming,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.

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