Washington - President Barack Obama said Friday that he hopes the United States will soon be able to match Germany's commitment to tackling climate change. After a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House, Obama acknowledged that Europe was well ahead of the United States in reducing emissions that cause global warming.
"Europe in many ways over the last several years has moved more rapidly than the United States," Obama said in a press conference with Merkel. He was "impressed" with Germany's "foresight and commitment to clean energy."
"It is my hope that the United States will match that commitment today," Obama said, as the US House of Representatives prepared to vote later in the afternoon on a landmark bill that for the first time would impose limits on climate-damaging emissions.
Merkel, who held talks with members of Congress earlier Friday, said she had witnessed a "sea change" in US attitudes towards global warming over the past year.
The House bill "really points to the fact that the United States is very serious on climate." That will help world governments agree on a new global treaty at a critical summit in Copenhagen in December, Merkel said.
The United States and European Union have been at odds over how aggressively to lower greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for heating the Earth's climate, with the EU adopting much tougher targets.
The US legislation, which could be defeated in the House and has still to be taken up by the Senate, would introduce a so-called cap- and-trade system that already exists in the European Union and forces firms to pay for their pollution.
Obama has made confronting global warming a priority of his administration, committing the United States to far more aggressive targets for reducing emissions than existed under former president George W Bush.
Merkel said the US shift marked "an enormous success, which I would not have thought possible a year ago."
But the United States is still far behind Europe: Obama has set a target of reducing emissions about 7 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2020. The European Union is committed to a 20-per-cent cut over the same period.
Bush strongly opposed mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions and the House legislation has been strongly opposed by conservatives who argue it will place an undue cost on the US economy. Obama said the United States had to make up for lost time.
"I'm the first one to acknowledge that the United States over the past several years has not been where we need to be," Obama said. "But I'm very proud of the progress that we have made."
