Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama won praise abroad on Tuesday for his pledge to lead the fight against climate change, which has faltered as nations argue over who should foot the bill to lower carbon emissions.

Two decades of summits and resolutions have not stopped mankind pumping growing quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, despite a wealth of evidence that it is causing more frequent and devastating droughts, storms and floods.

Obama devoted a surprisingly long section of Monday's inauguration speech to climate change -- more than a minute out of about 20. He said failure to respond to the threat "would betray our children and future generations."

"The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it," he said.

"Great strong words on climate... The U.S. President could not commit stronger to delivering now," Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate commissioner, wrote on Twitter.

"We have got work to do on climate change and President Obama was very forthright about the need to tackle climate change," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters.

A succession of recent natural disasters has put a sharper focus on climate change.

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