(BRUSSELS) - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday he expected the United States be more ambitious about fighting climate change at a G8 summit in Japan next week.

"I really expect the US to show more ambition than (what) they have shown so far," Barroso told a small group of journalists.

The United States is the only major industrial power to shun the Kyoto Protocol, whose requirements to slash emissions expire in 2012. President George W. Bush has argued that it is unfair because it makes no demands on developing nations.

Hopes are high in Europe that Bush's successor will take fighting climate change more seriously, especially at international negotiations in December 2009 in Copenhagen about reducing emissions after Kyoto expires.

However, Barroso also insisted that leaders should not content themselves to fixing distant targets, and should also commit to more short-term objectives, as the EU has done by promising to cut its emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

"It is important not only to say what our children should be doing but also what we can do already now," he said.

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