EU, US join forces to combat global warming

US President Barack Obama (2nd R) speaks beside Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (C), the European Council High Representative Javier Solana (2nd L), and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso (R) during the US-European Union Summit in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

The European Union and the United States join forces yesterday to combat global warming ahead of a key UN-backed climate summit next month, but the Europeans warned Washington that not enough had been done.
Fresh from a White House meeting Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also made a heart-felt plea for a climate protocol in a speech to US lawmakers, US President Barack Obama held talks with European Union leaders to assure them his administration supported clinching a new treaty in Copenhagen in December.
The EU-US summit goes into its second day Wednesday for talks with US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, after the Europeans pressed Washington to take action on climate change and Obama stood shoulder to shoulder with his European allies in pressing to redouble efforts to combat global warming.
"All of us agreed that it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in dealing with (a) potential ecological disaster," Obama said after talks with European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Merkel, in a rare speech to a joint session of Congress, compared the battle over climate change to the struggle to bring down the Berlin Wall two decades ago next week.
She also backed Western calls for emerging nations to do more. "I'm convinced that once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in," she said.
But even as she and Obama stressed the need to solidify a framework agreement at Copenhagen, US Republican lawmakers boycotted a committee meeting on an Obama-backed bill to set the first US requirements on curbing carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
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."
Barroso, who praised Obama for having "changed the climate on climate negotiations," said he was "worried by the lack of progress in negotiations" ahead of the December 7-18 climate meeting that aims to seal a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.
"Of course we are not going to have a full-fledged binding treaty, Kyoto-type, by Copenhagen," Barroso 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 world's largest economy in particular should take a lead role.
"What we are asking is the United States to show leadership in this, such an important issue," Barroso said.
After meeting with Obama, he said he was "more confident now" about Washington's commitment, but also warned against protracted negotiations akin to the stalled Doha round of trade liberalization talks.
Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said the United States should at least agree on targets for cutting emissions and on financing for developing nations.