Negotiators will look at ways to keep alive global efforts to fight climate change as they meet in Panama, with barely a year to go before commitments run out under the Kyoto Protocol.

In what has been described as a dress rehearsal for the closely watched UN conference in Durban, South Africa starting November 28, climate envoys from around the world are holding a week of talks starting Saturday in Panama City.

The Panama talks will look to lay the groundwork for a broad deal that would include national commitments to curb carbon emissions blamed for rising temperatures and guidelines on distributing billions of dollars in aid to small islands and other poor countries seen as most vulnerable to climate change.

"Countries seem to be looking for a package that comes out of Durban that will maintain the momentum, but I don't think the level of ambition is very high," said Tasneem Essop, head of climate strategy and advocacy at environmental group WWF.

"The fear is that we will miss the kind of timeframes that the scientists have told us -- that we need to peak our emissions by 2015," she said.

UN-backed scientists have warned that the rise in carbon emissions must stop by mid-decade or else damage from climate change will be irreversible, with the planet set for more droughts, floods and natural disasters.

One immediate political hurdle is the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the only treaty that requires cuts in emissions. Its commitments expire at the end of 2012, leading the European Union to spearhead calls to extend them.

Emerging economies such as China -- now the world's largest emitter -- have welcomed the idea of a new round under Kyoto, which requires cuts only by wealthy nations.

But other than the European Union, no major nation that would be affected by a Kyoto extension has been enthusiastic. Canada, Japan and Russia are all adamantly opposed, saying that any binding action must include emerging powers.

Australia and Norway have sought to break the deadlock with a joint proposal that calls for the Durban summit to set a target of reaching a new, binding climate treaty by 2015.

Under the Australian-Norwegian initiative, all developed and developing countries would state their actions against climate change and the commitments would gradually increase until the new treaty takes effect.

Talks watchers said that the key issues included how to preserve institutions set up by the Kyoto Protocol, such as trading in emissions credits, and to avoid any gap of time without a treaty.

"I think there is general agreement that by the end of this decade the goal should be to have something both deeper and broader" than Kyoto, said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"How you get there and what happens in the meantime are the big questions," he said.

The United States is the only major economy to reject the Kyoto Protocol and so would not have obligations under a new round. But it has repeatedly insisted that China and other emerging economies be covered by any future climate deal.

President Barack Obama's efforts on climate change have slowed with members of the rival Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives, questioning scientists' view that human activity is causing climate change.

The US political situation adds another doubt as to whether the developed world will meet promises made at the tense 2009 Copenhagen summit to provide $100 billion a year in climate assistance to poor countries starting in 2020.

Japan has been the largest contributor by far to near-term climate assistance but is now coping with reconstruction from its March tsunami. The European Union has pledged climate funding but is facing a public debt panic.

"This is not charity. It's in self-interest that these commitments get maintained," Meyer said, arguing that aid would promote clean technology exports and improve security.

But whether the money comes through "is a legitimate question given that the political focus in all three of these major donors is on their own internal fiscal situation," he said.

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