Washington will consider agreeing to binding caps on greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012 despite opposing such limits under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, the chief US climate negotiator said on Friday.

“We want to launch a process that will be open and doesn’t preclude any options,” Harlan Watson told Reuters during a 190-nation December 3-14 conference in Bali, Indonesia, at which the United States is isolated among rich nations in opposing Kyoto.

“That could be the end point of what occurs in 2009,” he said when asked if the United States, the world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases, might agree to binding emissions caps for the long term. “I cannot predict the outcome.”

President George W Bush has long favoured voluntary goals and investments in technologies such as hydrogen or “clean coal” instead of binding caps under Kyoto, which now groups all other industrial nations after Australia ratified the pact this week.

Bush’s administration will host new talks among 17 major emitters of greenhouse gases in Hawaii in late January, and Bush wants all to set new long-term emissions goals by the end of 2008 to help the world agree a new UN pact by end-2009.

Watson said that the administration had no intention of changing its climate policies despite pressure from Congress.

The House of Representatives passed an energy bill on Thursday that would boost vehicle fuel economy requirements by 40 percent by 2020, raise ethanol use five-fold by 2022 and impose $13 billion in new taxes on big energy companies.

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