Little Hope for Climate

"I do not think the US will adopt the European climate protection goals," Merkel told the daily Münchener Merkur.

But she said there was growing awareness in the United States and within the US government that reducing greenhouse gas emissions was crucial.

"I have been pleased at international meetings to see a growing feeling for a common, global responsibility (for climate protection)," she said. "On some issues, the US is even surpassing European targets, for example in the use of biofuels."

Germany currently holds the rotating presidency of both the Group of Eight club of rich nations and the European Union.

Not that different after all?

The US ambassador to the EU, Boyden Gray, said earlier this month that the gap between the United States and EU over how to tackle global warming is narrower than many might think.

"Both sides of the Atlantic now agree it's the same and it's a constructive change," he said. "I don't see that much difference."

Gray was responding to criticism from European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who tartly compared EU plans to cut greenhouse-gas emissions through ever-tighter, legally binding curbs with the US voluntary approach.

Thinking beyond Kyoto

The EU championed the Kyoto Protocol to reduce harmful emissions after it was abandoned by the United States in March 2001.

But the treaty has been almost crippled by the absence of the United States, which alone accounts for about a quarter of all this pollution.

Exploratory negotiations are under way for determining what treaty should follow Kyoto after the accord expires at the end of 2012.

Germany helped broker an agreement last month under which the 27 EU member states will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels over the next 13 years.