By Louis Charbonneau POTSDAM, Germany, March 16 (Reuters) - Environmental groups expressed disappointment on Saturday over what they said was a failure of the United States to back steps on fighting climate change at a meeting of rich-power environment ministers. The ministers were in Germany to prepare the ground for a June meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight (G8) powers, which will take place in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm, where climate change will be a major topic. Shortly before the closed-door ministers' meeting in Potsdam was to end, environmental activists said there was no indication any major progress had been made on the need for mandatory targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. "So far there's been no big result and the U.S. hasn't moved," said Regine Guenther, head of climate and energy at the German chapter of the conservation organisation WWF. "It's obviously disappointing that at the moment we're not seeing any movement from the United States." In a Friday interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the two-day meeting, the top U.S. delegate, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Stephen Johnson, gave no sign the U.S. government would drop its refusal to commit to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction targets. "Our focus is working, not only domestically but also internationally, for the advancement of technologies that actually address greenhouse gas emissions," he said. The United States has been criticised for its decision in 2001 to pull out of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries cite the U.S. position as a reason for their refusal to commit to reduction targets. Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace said German Chancellor Angela Merkel should make the summit in Heiligendamm a "climate crisis summit" where G8 countries commit to a 30 percent reduction target by 2020. The European Union agreed last week to a mandatory reduction of CO2 emissions of 20 percent by 2020. It has said it would increase that to 30 percent if other big countries joined in. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and the U.S. position will be key in negotiating post-Kyoto emissions targets. The world's environment ministers meet in Bali in Indonesia in December where they hope to agree on a mandate for negotiating emissions targets for the period after 2012. Muenchmeyer said the world should not wait around for the United States but agree tough, mandatory targets anyway. "We can't afford to wait for the slowest country," he said. Germany is currently president of the 27-nation EU and the G8, whose members are Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia.
