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Durban talks unlikely to result in climate change deal by Fiona Harvey and John Vidal

With only three more days of negotiations to go, UN chief Ban Ki-moon says agreement may be 'beyond our reach – for now'

A global legally binding deal on climate change is likely to be off the table, at least "for now", the United Nations secretary-general has said in his most downbeat assessment of the talks.

Assessing the nine days of negotiations at Durban so far, Ban Ki-moon told delegates: "It may be true, as many say: the ultimate goal of a comprehensive and binding climate change agreement may be beyond our reach – for now."

He said that the "grave economic troubles in many countries" had overshadowed the talks, now in their second week and with three days to go. But he also blamed "abiding political differences [and] conflicting priorities and strategies for responding to climate change". As a measure of the low expectations, Ban said he was looking for just "incremental advances".

The key issues at the talks are now clear: whether the "green climate fund" is permitted to go ahead; the future of the Kyoto treaty, which is in grave doubt; and whether there can be a new global legally binding treaty on the climate in future, or a weaker compromise. What is still unclear, with just three full negotiating days to go, is whether any of these can be resolved.

For the multibillion dollar green fund to start distributing money to developing countries at last, the US – which has been blocking its launch – says it needs to be satisfied of the "transparency" of its governance. Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, said: "There are about 20 parties who have serious issues with the fund."

But he added: "I have no reason to think this is hung up at this point. We have been a very strong supporter of the fund. I'm pretty optimistic about it."

If it proceeds, it is likely to be the only major issue to be resolved here.

More complex is the future of the Kyoto protocol, the world's only treaty stipulating cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which the US has never joined and will not. The first "commitment period", under which developed countries undertook to cut their emissions by an average of 5%, runs out in 2012. But Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not join a proposed extension, leaving the European Union as the only major developed economy willing to consider it.

However, the EU is setting tough conditions – it wants major emerging economies such as China to agree to a "roadmap" by which they too would take on legally binding commitments on emissions in the future, at the latest by 2020. China has never agreed to make such international commitments before – currently, its target to curb emissions is only binding at a national level.

China's role so far at the talks has been ambiguous. Minister Xie Zhenhua, who heads the delegation, caused a small flurry of excitement when he spoke on Monday of China's willingness to participate in a "legal document". But as other countries were quick to point out, there is no clarity on what this could mean. Both the US and the EU warned that the Chinese position – that developed countries should agree to a legally binding agreement to cut emissions but China and other developing countries could get away with weaker commitments – appears unchanged.

On Tuesday, Xie Zhenhua reiterated his country's support for a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol (KP). "A second commitment period is a must. KP should be continued. Developed countries should honour their commitments", said Xie Zhenhua.

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, said both developed and developing countries needed to shift position. "Parties need to be reassured that should some of them commit to a second commitment period under Kyoto in a legally binding manner, others would be ready to commit to a legally binding regime in the near future … [Developing] country parties also need assurances that adequate and sustainable long term funding will be delivered."

This will not be resolved at Durban, which means that the question of whether the world will sign up to a full legally binding global deal on the climate will remain hanging, as will the question of whether the world is likely to cut its emissions by the drastic amounts needed without such a deal.

Outside the rarified wrangling of the conference chamber, there were warnings from scientists and economists. The International Energy Agency, one of the most respected bodies on energy policy, warned that the number of fossil fuel power stations and other energy hungry infrastructure that we build in the next three to five years may determine the whole future of the planet – because building such infrastructure, which will be around for decades to come, will "lock in" a world of high emissions. Scientists writing in Nature said on Sunday that global emissions from fossil fuels had risen by half since 1990, when these long-running UN negotiations were just beginning.