Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered one glimmer of hope on a bleak day in the 194-nation talks by announcing the US would contribute to a 100 billion-dollar fund to help poor nations cope with global warming.

"There should be no doubt about the commitment of the United States to reaching a successful agreement here in Copenhagen and meeting this great global challenge together," Clinton said.

The European Union held out hope that Obama upon arriving Friday could offer further US action on curbing carbon emissions blamed for rising temperatures.

"I don't think he's coming here just to reiterate what is in the draft legislation that is prepared by the Congress," EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said.

"As far as I know he's coming here to show leadership -- what everybody expects from the United States of America and from President Obama himself."

Obama -- whose last trip to Copenhagen, to bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago, failed spectacularly -- has made clear the United States would not accept an "empty" agreement.

"We're not going there just to get an agreement for the sake of something that's called an agreement," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Obama has sharply reversed course from his predecessor George W. Bush, who was despised by many Europeans for rejecting action against climate change as too costly and doubting the science underpinning it.

But Obama's calls to cut emissions by 17 percent by 2020 off 2005 levels are still well below pledges by the European Union and Japan.

Lawmakers from Bush's Republican Party flew to Copenhagen to pledge to block Obama from winning approval in Congress, where the Senate has yet to vote on the first US nationwide plan to curb emissions.

"We're not going to be passing a climate change bill," Senator Jim Inhofe, the top Republican critic of climate change legislation, said on a visit of just two hours to Copenhagen in between votes in Washington.

"The ones who really grab ahold of this in the United States are the Hollywood elites," he said.

Inhofe said he was open to trade in green technology but rejected widespread aid to emerging economies.

"Why would we in the United States give something to China to help them to meet certain goals when they own 800 billion dollars of our debt? It just doesn't make sense," Inhofe said.

Developing nations argue that wealthy states bear responsibility for global warming and hence need to provide greater resources.

The United States has insisted that emerging economies' pledges to take action on the climate need verification -- a demand shared by members of the US Congress that support strong action on climate change.

Separate from Inhofe, a congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Copenhagen with the Democrats rallying behind the talks.

"We collectively want to let everyone know that when our president speaks it's with one voice, even though we have separation of powers," said Representative Charles Rangel.

Andrew Deutz, director of international government relations at the non-governmental Nature Conservancy, said he believed Clinton had an eye both at home and abroad with her 100 billion-dollar fund announcement.

"They put a significant offer on the table and want something back from developing countries, but it's also a powerful message back home to get comprehensive legislation," he said.

Ahead of the summit, the Obama administration gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate carbon, meaning it could theoretically regulate carbon even if legislation flops in Congress.

Back in Washington, Representative Darrell Issa and fellow Republicans said they would try to block the move through congressional legislation.

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