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Obama: US, EU To Boost Climate-Change Efforts Before Summit

By Maya Jackson Randall, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- After meeting with key European officials at the White House, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he's confident that the U.S. and European Union can agree on a framework for tackling climate change ahead of a key summit in Copenhagen.

Obama said he, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt agreed to boost their efforts ahead of the crucial summit on climate change slated for December.

"We discussed climate change extensively, and all of us agree that it was imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to ensure we create a framework for progress in dealing" with the potential disaster," Obama said to reporters at the end of his meeting.

Global leaders have called on a plan that would limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. Reinfeldt, who met with Obama on Monday as well, highlighted that goal. "We need an agreement that can deliver on the two- degree target," Reinfeldt said, adding that there needs to be a global solution for financing a climate-change program.

"We have great hopes for your leadership on this issue," Reinfeldt said.

Similarly, Barroso welcomed Obama's leadership on the issue. "I'm more confident now than I was some days before," he said. "President Obama changed the climate on the climate negotiations."

-By Maya Jackson Randall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; maya.jackson- randall@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  11-03-091716ET
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