The European Union has pushed harder for the Copenhagen conference on climate change to succeed than any other political entity. But just days before the opening of the U.N.-sponsored meeting on Monday, the Europeans have been largely pushed to the sidelines, watching as the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, seek to set the rules of the game. 'That's of course the unfortunate situation for Copenhagen,' said Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament who will attend the 12-day conference, meant to find a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. 'It's turning into a bit of a pingpong match between China and the United States, with each just looking at the other.' Europeans say they are moving toward a low-carbon economy that could serve as a model for the rest of the world. But the bloc's ability to exercise influence through progressive standards and moral leadership, rather than superpower status, is facing a crucial test. 'The EU, frankly, doesn't have the political clout to determine the outcome at Copenhagen,' said Peter Haas, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The European Union still has much at stake, however. It is facing pressure, Haas added, to 'keep the prospects of a global deal alive so that European business leaders and voters believe they are on track to take advantage of green technology markets of the future.' That will be a challenge. The bloc remains internally divided on several issues, including how much to pay developing countries to limit emissions and how deeply to cut its own output. European negotiators are also frequently at odds with their counterparts in the United States, who have criticized the legally binding structure created at Kyoto as cumbersome, unworkable and a threat to U.S.. Mistrust has lingered even after President Barack Obama pledged to tackle the problem of greenhouse gases. The European Union made global climate control a key plank of its geopolitical strategy in 2001, when President George W. Bush said he would let the Kyoto Protocol languish. Europe, by contrast, developed new targets, subsidies and mechanisms to comply with the treaty, including a complicated system to cap carbon dioxide and trade emissions permits. Last year, in a bold move to stamp its environmental policies on the rest of the world, the European Union required all airlines arriving or leaving from its airports to buy some pollution credits beginning in 2012. But the move infuriated Washington, which said it risked breaking international aviation rules by forcing non-European airlines into the system. This summer, the Europeans were particularly irked by an American decision to negotiate with China bilaterally rather than attend climate talks under the United Nations umbrella. In October, European leaders agreed to pay a share into a global fund that would be worth $100 billion annually by 2020. European nations could not agree on how much should be contributed from the public purse. To help raise that money, the European Union wants to reach a deal at Copenhagen that would bring about the developed world's participation in a global carbon trading system. When Obama omitted any mention of money for developing countries last week, the European Commission tartly responded that finance was 'one element we need to continue to discuss.' The European Union also has taken a lukewarm view of Obama's provisional commitment to reduce the United States' emissions by 17 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, which it views as falling far short of what is needed. The bloc's environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, has called for Europe to unilaterally cut emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels, from the current agreed offer of 20 percent. 