Joining forces

Obama received top EU officials at the White House, shortly after speaking to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We discussed climate change extensively and all of us agreed that it was imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to ensure that we create a framework for progress," Obama told reporters.

The UN conference to fight climate change will be held in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18, where emerging economic powerhouses China and India will face Western industrial nations in the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The meeting in Washington was deemed a success by both sides, with EU leaders visibly happier with Obama's attitude to the problem than that of his predecessor.

"President Obama changed the climate on the climate negotiations. With the strong leadership of the United States we can indeed make an agreement," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, "Regarding climate change, I want to say that I am more confident now than I was in days before."

Immune to pressure

At the short EU-US summit, which continues Wednesday when the EU leaders meet US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Europeans pressed Washington to take action on climate change ahead of December's summit, warning that not enough had been done.

The meeting followed Angela Merkel's historic speech before Congress, in which she set a fixed target for lawmakers around the world. "We need an agreement on one objective - global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F)," she said, "To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations."

But a significant political faction in the US remains immune to international pressure. Even as Merkel and Obama stressed the need to solidify a framework agreement at Copenhagen, Republican lawmakers boycotted a committee meeting on an Obama-backed bill to set the first US requirements on curbing carbon emissions.

Asked what impact Merkel's speech might have on the US debate, Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the committee looking at the climate legislation, said, "None whatsoever."

Despite the boycott, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer hailed the committee's first work session a success. She told reporters that she sensed a "fundamental shift" in the debate, after receiving a letter from US Chamber of Commerce saying it was open to a "new conversation" on the issue.

Copenhagen will be no Kyoto

Before meeting Obama, Barroso warned against setting expectations for Copenhagen too high.

"Of course we are not going to have a full-fledged binding treaty, Kyoto-type, by Copenhagen," he told reporters. "This is obvious. There is no time for that."

An international meeting next year in Mexico could be used to finalize a treaty, but Barroso said Copenhagen needed to come up with the framework of the deal, and that the USA in particular should take a lead role.

bk/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Trinity Hartman