U.S., China to work for success at climate summit

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 - The United States and China have agreed to work harder to achieve success at U.N.-led climate talks in Copenhagen in December after Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao discussed the subject, the White House said on Wednesday.

Each country was taking "significant actions to confront climate change and reduce emissions," it said in a statement.

"To that end, the two presidents committed to having their teams redouble efforts to work with each other and other countries to achieve success at Copenhagen."

Rich and rapidly developing nations are in deadlock about how to share the burden of slowing climate change.

At the meeting in Copenhagen in December, 190 countries will seek to move past that and agree a new framework on tackling climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Hu said earlier he was optimistic about the U.N. talks, even though the latest round of negotiations did not break the deadlock.

China is the world's top greenhouse gas emitter followed closely by the United States. However, the United States has polluted far more greenhouse gases over the last two centuries that remain in the atmosphere and trap heat.