EU environment summit

European Union environment ministers called on the United States Wednesday to help the bloc lead and finance the battle against climate change. Czech minister Martin Bursik, who hosted the EU environment summit in Prague said that Europe needed to build a coalition with the US if the fight against climate change was to be effective.

Earlier this month in Prague, US President Barack Obama vowed that the United States was "now ready to lead" on climate change, breaking with his predecessor George W. Bush, whose stance had long frustrated Europeans. So far, the US has agreed to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, while Europe has pledged to cut its own emissions by at least 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and 30 percent if other advanced economies follow suit.

The Prague meeting was to help pave the ground for a summit in Copenhagen in December, which is expected to produce a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.