Obama Makes "Step Forward" in Copenhagen

Updated at 8:24 a.m. Eastern.

The White House reported "a step forward" in climate change negotiations following President Obama's meeting Friday with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports that the leaders' 55 minute meeting was a "constructive discussion" on key issues including financing and transparency, according to a White House official.

The leaders instructed their advisers to continue negotiations to see if an agreement can be reached in Copenhagen.

President Obama joined scores of fellow world leaders Friday for the final day of the international climate conference, telling those gathered in Copenhagen he still believed it was possible for them to act "boldly and decisively."

"As the world watches us today, our ability to take collective action is in doubt," Mr. Obama said just three hours after arrival.

"I believe we can act boldly and decisively in the face of a common threat. That is why I am here today; not to talk, but to act," said the President.

He added that no country would get everything it wants out of a global agreement to cap carbon emissions, but that compromise was necessary, and urgent. "Ladies and gentlemen, there is no time to waste," said Mr. Obama.

Despite his cautiously optimistic words of encouragement, Mr. Obama brought little new to Copenhagen beyond his pleas for other nations to step up, and earnest promises of U.S. seriousness. Hours ahead of his arrival, a European Union spokesman said an agreement had not yet emerged to present to leaders; delegates grumbled that a final statement was likely to be based on politics and not concrete steps to confront climate change.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports Mr. Obama also vowed that, regardless of whether an agreement is reached in Copenhagen, America has plotted its course and will continue to take measures to curtail carbon emissions domestically.

Obama planned to spend only about nine hours at the summit. His most closely watched discussion was the bilateral meeting with Wen Jiabao, as sniping between the two countries dominated the summit earlier this week.

Speaking to reporters after an unscheduled meeting with Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy blamed China for the impasse, accusing Beijing of slowing the negotiation process.

Prior to Obam's remarks, Wen defended his country's climate commitments, saying "we will honor our word with real action."

Wen said China's voluntary targets of reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent will require "tremendous efforts."

China has been criticized at the two-week summit for not offering stronger carbon emissions targets and for resisting international monitoring of its actions.

"These two powers, very wary of each other, are each desperate not to have a deal here that will give strategic and economic advantage to the other," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Friday.

Friedman said the main sticking point for China was the U.S. demand for "transparency" - measures written into any agreement that would require Beijing to prove its actions to reduce emissions to the international community.

"The Chinese have basically said we promise not to go over the speed limit," quipped Friedman, "but we want no police, no courts, no stoplights, no real transparency on their carbon emissions… and President Obama is saying, 'If you think I can get that through the U.S. Congress - that China promises to be good on carbon, well, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.'"

It was widely reported that a political deal would emerge from the conference, but that would be seen by many as a setback, following two years of intense negotiations to agree on deeper reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases largely blamed for global warming.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs openly discussed on Thursday the possibility the conference could end up a bust - a kind of lowering of expectations that could be an attempt to inoculate Obama from the fallout, or a negotiating ploy to scare recalcitrant nations into making moves of their own.

Much about Obama's day at Copenhagen's Bella Center purposely remained fluid, leaving opportunity for ad-hoc discussions in the search for a climate deal.

"It's essential that all countries do what is necessary to reach a strong operational agreement that will confront the threat of climate change while serving as a stepping-stone to a legally binding treaty," Mr. Obama said before leaving Washington.

But, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports, no one expects a legally binding treaty - and a "strong operational agreement" may also be beyond reach.

So the key question remains: Would the leaders have anything to smile about when they pose for a planned group photo?

Prospects for an agreement brightened somewhat Thursday after the U.S. offered to join others in raising $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming. China responded by moving toward a firm U.S. demand that Beijing and other developing economies make cuts in emissions growth that are open to international verification.

European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the exchange gave the talks "political momentum."

The sudden concessions on the eve of Friday's final session lifted hopes that the 193-nation conference could reach a framework agreement that could be refined into a legal accord next year on limiting greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change.

Despite calls for the U.S. to increase its promised emissions cut to help reach a deal, Obama wasn't bringing a new proposal.

For one thing, the U.S. emissions-reduction commitment purposely mirrors the legislation before Congress, which calls for 17 percent reduction in pollution from 2005 levels by 2020 - the equivalent of 3 to 4 percent from the more commonly used baseline of 1990 levels and only a tiny fraction of offers from the European Union, Japan and Russia.

Even that target was hard-won in a skittish Congress, and Obama has decided he can't go further without potentially souring final passage of the bill, approved in the House but not yet considered in the Senate. He also could imperil eventual Senate ratification of any global treaty that emerges next year.

None of the leaders at the summit have offered to increase their emissions targets, which the United Nations has concluded would fall far short of what is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

As Obama crossed the Atlantic in Air Force One, a leading African delegate at the two-week conference expressed disappointment in the draft that was emerging.

"It's weak. There's nothing ambitious in this text," said Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, spokesman for the developing-nations group.

Obama also will not be putting a specific dollar amount on Washington's promised "fair share" contribution into a short-term, $10 billion-a-year fund for developing countries, said a White House official involved in the talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the administration's thinking.

Instead, in his public remarks and private meetings, Obama planned to be an in-person embodiment of his and the United States' commitment to act. He was to lay out his requirements for an agreement, including the transparency demand, and speak in personal terms about the stakes of inaction.