EU leaders upped the pressure on the US at what turned out to be a fairly colourless summit in Washington to show leadership in the battle against climate change.

In the US capital on Tuesday (3 November) for the first EU-US summit since the June European elections and the election of President Barack Obama a year ago to the day, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Swedish Prime Minister Frederick Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, and foreign policy chief Javier Solana pushed the White House to take greater action on global warming amid growing fears that an agreement at UN talks in Copenhagen in December will be unsuccessful.

"All of us agreed that it is imperative for us to redouble our efforts in the weeks between now and the Copenhagen meeting to assure that we create a framework for progress in dealing with potential ecological disaster," was the boilerplate message Mr Obama gave after meeting with his manifold European counterparts.