Chinese President Hu Jintao is set Tuesday to make an "ambitious" statement on global warming that would make Beijing the world leader in the race to seal a new treaty, the UN climate chief said.

More than 120 world leaders are converging at the United Nations on Tuesday for a special summit that takes place some 100 days ahead of a meeting in Copenhagen that is meant to approve a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said he spoke with a Chinese official who indicated Hu would make ¨an ambitious" statement at the summit.

"This policy will make China become the world leader on climate change," de Boer told a small group of reporters.

"I have very high expectations on what President Hu will be announcing," he said, explaining that the measures will "take Chinese emissions very significantly away from where they would have been without a climate policy."

A major announcement by China could serve as a game-changer in slow-moving climate negotiations, in which developed nations and emerging economies have been at loggerheads insisting that the other side act first.

De Boer was also upbeat about Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has pledged to ramp up Japan's commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Hatoyama has said his center-left government will commit to cutting emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, compared with previous premier Taro Aso's eight percent goal.

"As Japan is probably the most efficient economy in the world, it's incredibly ambitious," de Boer said.

But de Boer was more cautious on the role of the United States.

Environmentalists rejoiced when President Barack Obama took office and reversed US policy on climate change. But de Boer said it was "very ironic" that developing nations, which Washington has pressed for more action, were now taking the initiative.

"What we see happening here is that health care is so dominating the (US) domestic agenda that it is pushing back the climate change legislation, making it more difficult for the US to come to Copenhagen with a strong position," de Boer said.

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