(adds background, government official) BERLIN, May 31 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush's long-term strategy on climate change showed the issue of global warming could not be ignored, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. "What is positive is that we can see from the speech that the U.S. president made earlier today that nobody can ignore the question of climate change," Merkel told reporters. Bush's plan comes just a week before Merkel hosts a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Heiligendamm. She had hoped to forge a G8 consensus on tackling the causes of global warming but has run up against strong resistance from Washington. Merkel said work still needed to be done on the concrete formulations to be used by the G8 at their meeting but there had been some movement in the situation. Separately, a German government official close to Merkel welcomed the Bush speech as a "positive step" and made clear Germany favoured a global deal under the auspices of the United Nations. "The American president showed in this speech that he recognises the need for action in protecting the climate," the official said. "It is important for us that all initiatives and steps in the climate process are bound together with the United Nations." (additional reporting by Noah Barkin)
