World leaders gather for working dinner at G-20 summit

Pittsburgh, Sept 25 (ANI): US President Barack Obama welcomed world leaders to the G-20 summit at a working dinner.

Leaders including Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama among others, arrived with their spouses at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

Group of 20 leaders are working to seal an agreement on phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels at their Pittsburgh summit but have no fixed date for the change, G-20 officials said.

Many G-20 governments give tax breaks and direct payments to companies that help them produce coal, oil and other fossil fuels that cause greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The subsidies account for tens of billions of dollars alone in the United States.

The United States and the European Union have pressed developing economies such as China, India and Russia to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, saying such a move would help a global push to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. By Naveen Kapoor (ANI)