U.S. to seek climate framework, not legal pact: experts

“I don't think that anyone is expecting a legal pact at this point,” Michael Levi, an expert on climate issues at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

But U.S. President Barack Obama already hinted this week that the United States would seek to create a “framework for progress” at the summit, which he said would pave the way to stem a “potential ecological disaster.”

No one expects the United States to arrive in Copenhagen with definitive targets for cutting its emissions of greenhouse gases or set numbers for helping developing nations combat climate change, two prerequisites for a deal, according to Levi.

“The Senate will still be working on the bill when Copenhagen begins and ends,” he said, and possibly not agreeing on final wording until next year.

The summit in the Danish capital has been set up to seal a treaty to succeed the landmark Kyoto Protocol — which the United States never signed. Kyoto's obligations to cut carbon emissions expire in 2012.

The Republican minority in the Senate and Democratic lawmakers from coal industry-reliant states are however fiercely opposed to the creation of a scheme for cutting carbon emissions, known as “Cap and Trade,” which aims to promote development of clean energy sources.

“There is a big question as to whether a deal can be made on the architecture of an agreement without one on the content,” Levi said, however.

The United States, unlike other participating countries, such as those in the European Union, could likely be willing to sign on to a framework of an agreement, without putting a finger on hard numbers, Levi added.

The House of Representatives in June narrowly passed the plan to curb carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020, but the bill — already criticized by other developed nations as not ambitious enough — is bogged down in the Senate, where a slightly more ambitious version calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020.

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