WASHINGTON — At the start of the president’s two-day climate talks with the world’s major greenhouse gas polluters, Secretary of State Rice called for a solution “that does not starve economies of the energy they need to grow and that does not widen the already significant income gap between developed and developing nations.”

But she left it to nations to set their own goals and priorities.

“Let me emphasize that this is not a one-size-fits-all effort,” Ms. Rice said at the start of a two-day climate meeting called by Mr. Bush. “Though united by common goals and collective responsibilities, all nations should tackle climate change in the ways that they deem best.”

Ms. Rice also called for nations to “cut the Gordian Knot of fossil fuels, carbon emissions, and economic activity.”

Though the White House-led meeting includes Britain, France, Germany, and other nations in the Kyoto accord, many European officials expressed concern that Mr. Bush’s meeting would sidetrack the U.N. negotiations that have been the main forum for addressing global warming.

Yesterday, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he did not think that the Bush administration would be an impediment to global talks.

“We all know that they will be out of office in a few months,” he said on NDR Info radio. Mr. Bush leaves office in January 2009.

Later Mr. Gabriel told reporters the conference was a sign that the Bush administration was engaging in the issue.

“The good news is that we are negotiating,” he said. He said Europeans would be watching closely a speech by Mr. Bush at the conference Friday to gauge the American commitment.

Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, told the 16 nations participating in the White House-led meeting that “this relatively small group of countries holds a key to tackling a big part of the problem” but that their response can succeed only by “going well beyond present efforts,” especially among rich, industrialized nations.

While the U.N. supports mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases by rich nations, Mr. Bush’s rejection of the treaty stands: America won’t do more than slow its growth rate of emissions, and whatever requirements the world agrees on should extend equally to developing nations like China and India. Developing nations such as China, Mexico, and Indonesia say reducing poverty must be their main priority, but that they also can reduce emissions carbon dioxide and other warming gases, for example by targeting some parts of their economies for cuts or by planting trees and cutting down fewer forest lands.

“Poverty is still no. 1,” Emil Salim, an economist and member of the Indonesian president’s council of advisers, told the Associated Press.