Wisconsin and United Kingdom leaders are considering an agreement that would call for projects to research and share information about approaches to tackle global warming.
In a statement released during his overseas trip, Gov. Jim Doyle said he met with two British environmental policy-makers to discuss a potential memorandum of understanding between the United Kingdom and Wisconsin on climate-change issues.
The United Kingdom has similar agreements in place with California - the first state to pass a law requiring reduced greenhouse gas emissions - and Florida.
Doyle's office said the agreement would encourage collaboration between Wisconsin and the United Kingdom in researching and sharing new technologies as well as efforts to educate the public on global climate issues.
Doyle held meetings in recent days with John Ashton, special representative for climate change at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, and Phil Woolas, minister of state for the environment, during his British Isles trip.
A final agreement with the United Kingdom is expected by the end of the year.
Woolas signaled last fall, during an appearance in Milwaukee, that the United Kingdom would like to be a partner with the Midwestern states as they move to adopt a cap-and-trade agreement across the region that would attempt to reduce emissions across the Midwest by 2020.
"I'm optimistic," he said at the November Midwest climate and energy conference. "I genuinely believe that the strategic position of the Midwest is the tipping point in a global political agreement" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The agreements are considered starting points toward the United Kingdom joining cap-and-trade emissions trading markets that are expected to be developed. The trading systems are being set up on the West Coast and in the Northeast and Midwest.