American President Barack Obama met with EU leaders during a summit last week, to discuss climate change ahead of Copenhagen, with very little progress being made. However the summit did represent the first meeting of a new transatlantic Energy Council, after President Obama and his European counterparts agreed to establish a new energy forum on Tuesday last week.

The new forum which was agreed at ministerial level, aims to increase cooperation on such issues as energy policy and technology research. It is also hoped that the new agreement will go towards improving bilateral dialogue on policy issues related to low-carbon energy sources and global energy security concerns.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs praised the agreement, saying ‘The Energy Council is a timely initiative in the context of growing global concerns on energy security and the important role that the energy sector has in climate change. Elevating these discussions between us to a political level underscores the importance we both attach to this area of our relationship’.

The news that the US has once again shied away from making any concrete commitments ahead of Copenhagen, will only serve to dampen expectations further in the lead up to the COP-15 however.

No progress was made in terms of mid-term emission reduction targets, whilst in the longer term it was only agreed that the Copenhagen agreement should ‘aspire’ to a goal of reducing global emissions by 50% by 2050.

As a result of this disappointing outcome, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed both houses of Congress, urging the US to sign up to a new climate agreement in Copenhagen. She reasoned that ‘It is true that there can be no agreement without China and India accepting obligations, but I am convinced that if we in Europe and America show that we are ready to accept binding obligations, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in’.