Washington - Progress on reaching a climate change pact will play prominently at the summit of the United States and European Union that gets underway Tuesday. US President Barack Obama will be hosting the summit for the first time and is likely to face pressure from his European counterparts to act on global warming ahead of a UN summit in Copenhagen in December.
The Europeans will be putting pressure on Obama to show that he is serious about reaching a tough global deal to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, which is the focus of the Copenhagen gathering.
The US Senate this week began considering a bill that would force US companies to cut their climate-damaging emissions, but even administration officials have acknowledged that a bill is unlikely to reach Obama's desk in time for the Copenhagen talks.
By contrast, the EU's 27 member countries on Friday reached a compromise on how much money to offer developing countries to fight climate change, a key stumbling block for a global treaty. Obama has not said how much the US is willing to contribute.
The EU's 27 national leaders endorsed estimates by the European Commission, the EU's executive, that rich nations will have to offer developing countries around 100 billion euros (147 billion dollars) per year by 2020.
The US and EU will also be discussing regulatory reform to prevent another financial crisis from dragging down their economies. Here, there are signs of movement in Congress. A key panel of the House of Representatives approved major pieces of the legislation this month, including a new consumer financial watchdog and broadening oversight to over-the-counter derivatives and hedge funds.
The war in Afghanistan could also come during the talks as well as the ongoing negotiations with Iran to rein in its nuclear activities.
