World is a step closer to deal on climate change: Obama India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

With just two weeks before the start of the Copenhagen summit, US President Barack Omaba said that he and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have reaffirmed that an agreement in the summit should be comprehensive and cover all the issues under negotiations. President Obama said the world had moved closer to a "strong operational agreement" on climate change. "With just two weeks until the beginning of Copenhagen, it is also essential that all countries do what is necessary to reach a strong operational agreement that would confront the threat of climate change while serving as stepping stone to a legally binding treaty. And to that end Prime Minister Singh and I made important progress today. "We reaffirmed that an agreement in Copenhagen should be comprehensive and cover all the issues under negotiations," said Obama while addressing a joint press conference with Dr. Singh. The United States, the world's biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, is a critical player in the talks, but the Obama administration's position has been hampered by slow progress on a climate bill in the U.S. Senate. Big emitters such as China, the world's top carbon polluter, are watching Washington for its position. Most nations have given up hopes of agreeing to a binding legal treaty text in Copenhagen, partly because of uncertainty about what the United States will be able to offer. "Both President Obama and I have agreed on the need for a substantive and a comprehensive outcome which would cover mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology," Singh said. The United States will propose an emissions reduction target at U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen in December with an eye toward winning support from U.S. lawmakers who must agree to put it into law.