It is not news that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain acknowledges global warming and supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon-fuel emissions -- he has been on record for saying so.

But news is also about timing and emphasis -- and the presidential campaign, now gearing up for the main battle, makes its own news. What Sen. McCain said in Portland, Ore., about global warming Monday deserved to make headlines. This was good news.

For one thing, he put distance between himself and the Bush administration. Mr. McCain's strong words amounted to an accurate indictment of the White House: "I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach, an approach that speaks to the interests and obligation of every nation."

The written version of his speech even included a call for punitive action against China and India if they flouted international standards on emissions, but this was omitted in order not to be seen as compromising his support of free trade. Mr. McCain did include a personal anecdote about how he had seen for himself in the Arctic region evidence of a glacier's retreat over 20 years. Taken as a whole, the speech was a sharp break with the global-warming amnesia of the recent past.

Not that environmentalists were impressed. Mr. McCain has a somewhat checkered environmental record and his goal on reducing emissions is not as ambitious as Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Still, the devil in the details should not eclipse the angel in the big picture.

Mr. McCain gets it. While a political calculation no doubt fed his headline-making stance in environmentally conscious Oregon and in the nation at large, where he is viewed as McBush, a soulmate on most other issues, Mr. McCain also risked offending some of his base. Just last week, the Pew Research Center announced a poll that found Republicans are increasingly skeptical that the Earth has been warming over the past few decades -- just 49 percent think so, down 13 points since January 2007.

The news in Monday's speech is that, whoever wins the November election, there will be what has been missing on global warming during the Bush administration -- leadership.