UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday played up the December climate summit in Copenhagen by saying it could be a success even without yielding a legally binding agreement on reducing pollution.
He urged the 190 participating nations to reach political deals -- which diplomats said means nonbinding agreements -- on ambitious goals with the details to be worked out later.
Ban's climate adviser Janos Pasztor this week lowered expectations for the U.N. meeting on global warming in the Danish capital when he said a legally binding agreement would have to come out of talks after Copenhagen.
Diplomats and U.N. officials say getting political agreements out of Copenhagen will not be easy. Rich and poor nations are deadlocked, they say, on how to share the burden of curbing carbon dioxide emissions and aid to fund a deal.
But the U.N. chief insisted at a monthly news conference that expectations for the December summit remained high and said he was speaking daily with world leaders to encourage them to overcome the deadlock.
"We are still keeping ambitious expectations and targets," he told reporters.
He detailed several areas where the United Nations hoped for political agreements in December, the finer points of which would be worked out in 2010 and would form the basis of a legally binding agreement.
Ban said developed and developing countries should agree in Copenhagen on ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or growth of emissions.
Developing countries would need significant financial assistance to help them adapt to meet emissions targets, and this issue also should be agreed to in December, he said.
If deals can be reached on those and other matters in December, "then that can be a hallmark of success," Ban said.
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said earlier on Wednesday that it was important not to delay a final agreement.
"What has to be absolutely clear is that we do not have another year to sit on our hands until Mexico," where the next annual U.N. climate talks are due after Copenhagen.
The original U.N. goal had been to get a legally binding agreement on targets this year for reducing carbon dioxide emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
U.N. officials and diplomats have said privately that it would be hard to reach a final global agreement before U.S. President Barack Obama's climate measure winds it way through Congress.
His predecessor George W. Bush opposed mandatory carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets. But Obama has vowed to reverse that U.S. policy.
A U.S. Senate committee continues hearings on a bill to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But hopes have faded that any new U.S. climate laws will be in place before the talks in Denmark on Dec. 7-18.
The climate talks opened in 2007, and the last set before Copenhagen is scheduled for Barcelona, Spain, next week