BRUSSELS (AP) - The Europe Union wants a U.S. climate change bill to succeed so the United States can move swiftly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday.

Barroso said Europe was closely watching U.S. lawmakers as they discuss the Waxman-Markey bill that would set up a cap-and-trade program to limit how much carbon dioxide power plants and other major polluters could release.

"We want the U.S. to go as far and as fast as they can on climate change," Barroso said. "We want Waxman-Markey to succeed. ... Rarely, perhaps, has U.S. domestic legislation been so carefully monitored internationally."

"President Obama’s personal commitment ... has amounted to nothing less than a sea-change in the U.S. position. His leadership means that the United States is now back at the table (at international climate change talks)," Barroso said.

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have been increasing at about 1 percent a year and are expected to continue to go up if no mandatory reductions are required.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said that the heads of the G8 group of developed countries had "a great opportunity" at a July 8-10 meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, to agree on deeper reductions in carbon dioxide emissions for a new global pact later this year.

"We need a breakthrough right now," he said.

Neither the U.S., Japan nor the EU has so far committed to making cuts of between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 that U.N. scientists say are needed to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels, harsher storms and droughts and climate disruptions.

Developing countries are calling on industrialized nations to promise major emission reductions when they discuss a new global climate change pact in Copenhagen in December.

The U.S. has not laid out any target so far but this week ruled out a 40 percent cut below 1990 levels.