Obama vows to redouble efforts on climate change
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President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the United States and the European Union have agreed to redouble their efforts to ensure success of the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December.
"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 told reporters after meeting with top EU officials in the White House.
In the meeting, Obama, President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country took over the half-year EU rotating presidency since this July, also discussed the global financial crisis and some tough issues, including the war in Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear program.
The White House meeting, the first formal summit between the European Union and the United States for the Obama administration, was held just 33 days ahead of the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"We need an agreement that can deliver on the 2-degree target that could give us a solution on financing and that is global and that keeps -- puts everyone together. That is what we need to see, " said Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldt.
Barroso said he was encouraged by Obama's stand on climate change, saying "I am more confident now than I was in days before."
"President Obama changed the climate on the climate negotiations because with the strong leadership of United States we can indeed make an agreement. We are working toward a framework agreement in Copenhagen that will be an important agreement for the world," said Barroso.
The Obama administration, who voices an ambitious 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction below 1990 levels by 2050, has joined other major developed countries at the G8 summit this July in Italy's L'Aquila to support a goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius.
U.S. House of Representatives historically passed a climate change bill, which would cut carbon emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. The bill, however, has to be passed in the Senate before becoming law.
