The Copenhagen climate negotiations are likely to end with a "political framework", while leaving detailed emission reduction targets open for further discussion, according to a report released yesterday by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The academy, one of the country's leading think tanks, also offered a list for negotiators on what China should or should not commit to regarding greenhouse gas emissions.

"A possible outcome of the Copenhagen summit is that the international community agrees on a common belief to protect the global climate, for instance, controlling the temperature rise to less than two degrees centigrade," said Pan Jiahua, one of the authors of the report.

"But the expected consensus on who should reduce how much is not likely to be reached, as some developed countries are trying to throw away the Bali Roadmap with less than 50 days left before Copenhagen," Pan said.

Lu Xuedu, deputy director of the National Climate Center, said the proposal offered by some developed countries at the recent Bangkok climate talks to kill the Kyoto Protocol "was purposely setting up impediments for the negotiations as they do not want the legally binding responsibility."

Negotiations have been going on for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and requests industrialized countries to make quantified commitments to cut emissions of greenhouse gases that are stoking global warming. The Bali Roadmap was agreed by all parties in 2007, laying out a timetable and framework for a deal in Copenhagen.