By Deborah Zabarenko and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States pledged to make up for lost time on Monday at a meeting of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters, as the world works toward sealing a U.N. pact in December to curb global warming.
"Climate change is a clear and present danger to our world that demands immediate attention," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told delegates from 16 major economies, the European Union and United Nations.
"The United States is fully engaged and ready to lead and determined to make up for lost time both at home and abroad."
The two-day meeting is meant to jump-start climate talks before an international meeting in Copenhagen in December to find a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which limits climate-warming greenhouse emissions and expires in 2012.
President Barack Obama called the Washington forum last month, re-launching a process that began under his predecessor, President George W. Bush, whose initiative drew skepticism from participants out of fear that it would circumvent the U.N. process.
Bush opposed the Kyoto Protocol and any other across-the-board limits on emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, saying the agreement unfairly exempted quickly growing economies such as China and India and would hurt the U.S. economy.
Obama, in office since January, has been vocal in his commitment to dealing with climate change, and on Monday told the National Academy of Sciences: "Our future on this planet depends on our willingness to address the challenge posed by carbon pollution."
Obama, who aims to cut U.S. carbon emissions by more than 80 percent by 2050, announced a new scientific program called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, modeled on the U.S. push to succeed in the 1950s space race.
ADMITTING U.S. MISTAKES
Clinton touched on a major sticking point in international talks -- the role that big developing countries should play -- by admitting U.S. mistakes in allowing its own emissions to skyrocket.
"As I have told my counterparts from China and India, we want your economies to grow ... We just hope we can work together in a way to avoid the mistakes that we made that have created a large part of the problem," she said.
Environmentalists and others see a U.S. commitment to fighting climate change as essential to any global pact and welcome Obama's commitment to lead after what they view as eight years of lost time under Bush.
The major economies represented at the meeting include Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States.
Obama aims to cut U.S. emissions by about 15 percent by 2020, back to 1990 levels. The European Union and many environmentalists want the United States to go further.
The Obama team has pushed for action on climate change, most recently by declaring that carbon dioxide emissions endanger human health and welfare, which means the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can regulate them as pollutants. No regulations have been put in place, and Obama prefers legislation to regulation on this issue.
Legislation is already being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
Delegates at Monday's meeting hoped it would set the stage for success in Denmark.
"We count on these meetings to make progress toward Copenhagen," said Joao Vale de Almeida, representing European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the talks.
(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)
