Earth Equity News

Obama and EU Leaders Pledge to Redouble Efforts. Reuters, November 3, 2009. "U.S. President Barack Obama and European Union leaders pledged on Tuesday to redouble efforts for a deal on climate change at a summit in Copenhagen, but gave no details of how to reach that ambitious goal. 'We discussed climate change extensively and all of us agreed that it was imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to ensure that we create a framework for progress,' Obama told reporters... Obama spoke after a White House meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Foreign Affairs chief Javier Solana and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the EU's collective presidency... German Chancellor Angela Merkel told U.S. lawmakers after meeting with Obama earlier on Tuesday that a deal was urgent and there was 'no time to lose.' Merkel, making the first address by a German leader to a joint session of the U.S. Congress since Konrad Adenauer in 1957, was much more specific in what a deal would require. 'We need an agreement on one objective -- global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F),' she said. 'To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations,' she said."