WASHINGTON - GERMANY'S environment minister said on Tuesday that the Obama administration's approach to tackling climate change was 'the difference between day and night' in comparison with the Bush administration.

But Sigmar Gabriel said the Obama administration's goals for limiting carbon emission were not ambitious enough.

Mr Gabriel was speaking to reporters after a two-day meeting with the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. He said that the meeting gave him some optimism that the world's countries could strike a new agreement to limit emissions by a year's end deadline.

He said European officials left a similar meeting in 2007 disappointed by the Bush administration's positions.

Differences on limiting greenhouse gas emissions became one of the most divisive issues in trans-Atlantic relations during the Bush administration, which opposed binding cuts.

Mr Gabriel said the new US administration showed it was ready to change tack.

He added, however, that the United States needed to commit to bigger cuts than the administration or congressional Democrats have indicated they are considering.

The Washington meeting is the first of a series recommended by President Barack Obama to help broker a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Representatives of the 16 major economies present, which together account for 80 percent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, heard presentations from a host of top-level US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and White House science adviser John Holdren. -- AP