The British are coming (with encouragement to reduce carbon emissions)

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama posed for pictures alongside Gordon Brown. John McCain met with Tony Blair. Ed Markey was briefed by Ed Milliband.

In today’s British Invasion of Washington, Markey's guest -- Brown’s secretary of state for energy and climate change -- may have been the least prestigious, but carried his own particular power of suasion. The Massachusetts congressman chairs a shiny select committee on global warming, and is embarking on its first major quest: trying to pass environmental legislation in time for a December conference in Copenhagen intended to draw up a new international agreement to lower emissions.

"It's obvious that the rest of the world has been waiting for the United States to take over leadership on this issue," Markey said at a press conference. "Until we act, a lot of people won't act."

Milliband was on Capitol Hill with Danish climate minister Connie Hedegaard, largely to reaffirm those global expectations. Both voiced optimism at Obama's promise to take climate issues more seriously than his predecessor did and encouraged Congress to think of the moment as "an opportunity to rethink business as usual," as Hedegaard put it.

"It's right to say that Europe has a palpable sense of new American leadership," said Milliband. "This is an economic crisis that we face politically. The wrong thing would be to say that you can't tackle the economic crisis at the same time as tackling the climate crisis."

Markey and Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said they expect to be able to pass a bill by the end of the year, using Obama's targets and proposed cap-and-trade system as a guide.