The Obama administration has said it was optimistic ahead of a new round of UN climate talks in South Africa next week, but did not raise hopes of sealing a binding deal on gas emissions.

Analysts say the UN process to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for climate warming, is still traumatised by the stormy 2009 Copenhagen summit and, in Durban, faces a bust up over the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the only pact setting legal curbs.

Brandished by defenders as a model of cooperation between rich and poor, Kyoto’s first pledges expire at the end of 2012, but the United States has said it would not sign up for an updated Kyoto Protocol.

The US special envoy for climate change, Mr Todd Stern, confirmed Kyoto was not up for discussion.

“Kyoto is not on the table for the United States (but) we don’t see it as a logjam,” he told a press conference, adding he believed the process “has to open up and include all major economies.”

Negotiators from more than 190 countries will meet in Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9 with Europe aiming to set a roadmap towards a global pact by 2015 for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

But Kyoto has been gravely weakened by the absence of the United States and the lack of binding constraints over emerging giants such as China and India.

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