"California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming," the Republican said after an hour-long talks on the subject with Blair and prominent industry figures in Long Beach, California.

The former movie star's language was stronger than that of Blair's official spokesman earlier Monday, who was keen to downplay suggestions that Britain's partnership with the US west coast state could offend Washington.

Schwarzenegger told a news conference: "We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western (US) states involved."

He added: "I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment."

Blair -- who is regularly criticised for being too close to US President George W. Bush -- sidestepped questions about whether he shared those views.

He acknowledged that Britain and the United States had differences over the UN Kyoto Protocol to tackle climate change but said Washington was part of the G8 plus five dialogue to secure a new agreement to replace Kyoto in 2012.

Schwarzenegger restated his belief that "the debate is over" about whether global warming exists while Blair said he was encouraged that all the G8 leaders, including Bush, accepted it "without exception" at the Saint Petersburg summit earlier this month.

What the governor described as "unprecedented", the agreement commits Britain and California commits to "urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote low carbon technologies".

As well as sharing best practice, expertise and private sector involvement, Blair said he hoped it could include a possible emissions trading scheme similar to that in the European Union to push energy suppliers into using "greener", renewable sources.

Blair was whisked to the talks at British oil giant BP's facility from Los Angeles airport in a 12-vehicle-strong convoy, as dozens of police motorcyclists carved a path through the notoriously gridlocked freeway traffic. The talks were hosted by London-based not-for-profit organisation the Climate Group, whose chief executive Steve Howard told reporters: "If you could have bottled the energy in that room you could have solved the problem overnight."

Delegates included BP chief executive John Browne, with delegates including Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson, DuPont's Charles Holliday and Google founder Sergey Brin.

Both Britain and California have set out ambitious plans to cut the carbon dioxide emissions widely thought to lead to global warming.

Britain aims to reduce C02 emissions by 60 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 while Schwarzenegger has called for a reduction in emissions to 2000 levels by 2010 and 1990 levels by 2020.

Britain is keen that the estimated 17 trillion dollars of investment in new energy producing facilities between now and 2030 leads to cleaner energy choices.

Blair met Schwarzenegger Sunday at a meeting for senior executives of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire and talked of the need to work closely with energy-hungry emerging economies like China and India

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