With President Barack Obama on his way to meet his Chinese counterpart in Beijing for talks on global climate change and other important issues, a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org shows that publics in more than half of 20 nations disapprove of the way China and the United States are dealing with global warming.

The talks are expected to focus on climate change, economic concerns, and nuclear proliferation.. Climate change is of particular importance in the run-up to December’s 192-country conference in Copenhagen.

The WPO poll, finds that people in 11 nations disapprove of how [China] is “dealing with the issue of climate change.” Clear majorities in six nations — France (74%), Britain (73%), Germany (72%), the United States (69%), South Korea (69%), and Egypt (58%) — are disapproving, along with pluralities in five other nations.

Likewise, majorities in six nations disapprove of the U.S. handling of global warming — Egypt (68%), Britain (65%), France (62%), Pakistan 62%), Turkey (56%), and Germany (56%) — as do pluralities in five.

WorldPublicOpinion.org conducted the poll of 20,349 respondents in 20 nations that comprise 63 percent of the world’s population. This includes most of the largest nations — China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia — as well as Mexico, Chile, Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland, Ukraine, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and South Korea. The margins of error range from +/-3 to 4 percentage points. The surveys were conducted across the different nations between April 4 and July 9, 2009.

WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative project involving research centers from around the world, is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

Asked “if you think each is or is not generally cooperative with other countries,” an average of 59% responded positively with regard to the U.S., and 53% for China.

Many nations see these big powers as using “the threat of military force to gain advantages,” especially the U.S. All nations polled, including the U.S. itself, sees the U.S. this way — on average 77% — and only 46% say China does the same.