The Prime Minister will call today for a new international goal of stabilising temperatures and carbon emissions at present levels when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012, to be achieved primarily by investment in cleaner energy technologies.

Though the plan will be presented as a way of resolving deadlock over the best way to tackle global warming, it was attacked by environmental groups as a toothless sop to the Bush Administration that would fail unless backed by rigorous targets.

“In attempting to try to bring Bush on board he’s moving so far that we might end up without a coherent framework,” Mike Childs, of Friends of the Earth, said. “The trouble with saying we need new technology without having targets is that the business community won’t invest. It will keep its money in coal, oil and gas.”

Mr Blair’s proposal, which comes as the Government admitted that it would miss its pledge to reduce carbon dioxide output by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2010, will be laid out in a speech to a climate change conference in Wellington, the New Zealand capital.

It is intended to break the international stalemate over the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for emissions reductions by rich countries but is repudiated by the US.

A source close to the Prime Minister said it was now clear that Kyoto was a “dead-end street”, as it has developed into a religion that countries stand implacably for or against.

Sir David King, Mr Blair’s influential Chief Scientific Adviser, has argued that the world should seek to stabilise atmospheric carbon dioxide at 550 parts per million (ppm) by 2050, which he says is an achievable target that would limit the worst impacts of global warming. This goal, however, has been criticised as insufficient by green groups, who point to research suggesting that a maximum level of 400-450 ppm would be needed to confine climate change to 2C (3.6F) of warming.

Mr Blair has accepted that the US will not sign up to a “son of Kyoto” agreement that involves concrete reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, and fears that a failure to agree a new climate pact would be a disaster for the planet.

Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, described the new initiative as appalling. He said: “He’s taking his cue from George W. Bush. One has a sense of towels being thrown in all over the place.”

Michael Roberts, of the CBI, said: “Tony Blair is right to say that technology is important to tackling climate change — but firm international commitments to cut carbon emissions will also help to drive technological change.”

American objections to Kyoto stem from concern about the security of its energy supplies, and the damage that binding carbon emissions cuts might cause to its economy. It has said it will not sign up when two of the world’s largest polluters — China and India — are not part of the process.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, said: “It’s very regrettable that the Prime Minister is cooling on targets. Technology is not a substitute for having a clear framework.”

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