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Obama promises to redouble climate efforts

President Barack Obama has said the US and the EU have agreed to redouble their efforts to achieve success on climate change at next month's summit in Copenhagen.

Mr Obama was speaking after a meeting at the White House with senior EU officials, including Commission President José Manuel Barroso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Ms Merkel, in a rare speech to a joint session of Congress yesterday, compared the battle over climate change to the struggle to bring down the Berlin Wall two decades ago this week.

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Mr Obama also said both sides had pledged to 'work to mobilise' significant financial resources to support climate change efforts by developing countries.

The summit in the Danish capital has been convened to seal a treaty to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut carbon emissions expire in 2012.

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

RTÉ.ie News: Merkel & Obama Pledges on climate change
Merkel & Obama
Pledges on climate change
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