President Barack Obama said today that he hopes the United States will soon be able to match Germany's commitment to tackling climate change and boosting clean energy, dpa reported. After a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House, Obama said he was "impressed" with Germany's "foresight and commitment to clean energy." "It is my hope that the United States will match that commitment today," Obama said as the US House of Representatives prepared to vote later in the afternoon on a landmark climate bill. Merkel, who held talks with members of Congress earlier Friday, said she had witnessed a "sea-change" in US attitudes towards global warming over the past year. The House bill "really points to the fact that the United States (is) very serious on climate" and will help world governments agree on a new global treaty at a critical summit in Copenhagen in December, Merkel said. The US legislation would for the first time put a limit on companies' greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. It would introduce a so-called cap-and-trade system that already exists in the European Union. Obama has made confronting global warming a priority of his administration, committing the United States to far more aggressive targets for reducing emissions than existed under former president George W Bush. Merkel said the US shift marked "an enormous success, which I would not have thought possible a year ago."
