US, Europe must accept climate change obligations: German chancellor

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made an impassioned plea to the US and European nations to accept binding obligation on climate change to influence countries like China and India without whom no agreement was possible.

"There can be no agreement without India and China," she said in an historic address before both houses of the US Congress on Tuesday. "No doubt about it, in December, the world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans. And it is true, there can be no agreement without China and India."

"But I'm convinced, once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements; we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in," she said.

"We need an agreement on one objective: Global warming must not exceed 2 degrees Celsius," Merkel said stressing the importance of work together on efforts to curb global warming and to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting in Copenhagen next month.

Merkel said that people must tear down mental walls that blocked them from seeing the plight of future generations if warming continued unchecked with the same resolve that Germans had when they brought down the Berlin Wall on Nov 9, 1989.

The first German chancellor to address a joint session of the US Congress in 50 years, Merkel also called for building a stable partnership with India, China and Russia, noting that the world today is both freer and more integrated than ever before

"The fall of the Berlin Wall, the technological revolution in information and communication technology, the rise of China, India and other countries to become dynamic economies-all of this has changed the world of the 21st century into something completely different from what we knew in the 20th century," she said.

"There is no doubt NATO remains the crucial cornerstone of our common security," the German Chancellor said. But "Europeans, I am convinced, may contribute even more in the future, for we Europeans are currently working on giving a new contractual basis to our European Union," she said.

"This will make the European Union stronger and more capable of action, and thereby turn it into a strong and reliable partner for the United States. We can build stable partnerships on this sound basis, first and foremost with Russia, China and India," Merkel said.

As leader of Europe's largest economy, Merkel also pledged to keep working with the Group of 20 major economies, including India, to take coordinated steps to prevent a another global financial meltdown.

"The cooperation between the Americans and the Europeans is a crucial cornerstone. It is not an exclusive, but an inclusive cooperation. The G-20 have shown they are capable of action. And we need to resist the pressure of those who almost led the nations of this planet to the abyss." she said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Last updated on Nov 4^th, 2009 at 09:22 am IST--IANS