The Obama administration is crafting a decidedly low-key approach to a major upcoming U.N. environmental conference, environmental activists say.

With the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro in the middle of the U.S. presidential campaign season, environmentalists say they are under no illusions that the Obama administration will make some type of grand gesture.

But many also said they are frustrated with what they describe as a less-than-ambitious U.S. plan for what is being built up as a groundbreaking summit.

"I haven't seen the administration very far out in front on this. The lead's been taken by the [U.N.] secretary-general, the lead's been taken by the Scandinavians ... and by business," said former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth (D), president of the U.N. Foundation.

"The president is running for re-election, and it's pretty clear that this is not on the agenda, and the Republicans have decided that climate is in the same basket as abortion and tax cuts," he said.

Speaking earlier this week in his Washington office, Wirth said he doesn't think Obama needs to personally attend the conference. But Wirth said he also doesn't see the negative in making the Rio+20 conference a centerpiece for environmental achievements.

"I don't see that there's a political downside to working on sustainable energy, to working on renewables," he said. "I don't think it's a very risky proposition politically."

A missed opportunity?

Andrew Deutz, director of international government relations at the Nature Conservancy, said he thinks the United States is missing an opportunity to highlight things it has done well, like floodplain restoration in the wake of last year's Mississippi River flooding, and Gulf of Mexico restoration.

Instead, he said, the United States is offering up ideas like including a registry to record commitments made at the Rio Earth Summit.

U.N. Foundation President Tim Wirth. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

"They're bringing a lot of process stuff to the table, but not a lot of substance yet," he said. "They're wary about how a big environmental conference plays in the presidential debate in June."

At a recent panel discussion, Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs David Sandalow remained insistently vague when asked what he expected to come out of the Rio meetings. While praising the possibility for the summit to help achieve sustainable development goals, he would not say what specific proposals the United States will put forward or try to enact.

The State Department, which is taking the lead for the country at Rio, did not respond to questions from ClimateWire.

"I think they have a stronger sense of what they don't want to come out of Rio," Deutz said. "They don't want anything that's going to be politically damaging in the campaign, and they don't want anything that's going to raise expectations of financial commitments."

Other environmental activists like Worldwatch Institute President Robert Engelman are pushing for Obama to personally attend the summit. That prospect has Republicans gleeful and political analysts laughing.

A presidential trip to Rio unlikely

"I can think of worse things to do in the middle of campaign season, but I can't think of many of them," said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

While calling the issues at hand -- energy access for the poor, ocean health and renewable energy development, among others -- important, Ornstein predicted an Obama trip to the summit would be overshadowed by press reports of "women in teeny-tiny bikinis" and beach festivities.

"This is not the kind of thing if you want to be presidential in the middle of campaign season," he said. "You may make a trip to Russia, or Europe to deal with some of the economic issues. ... But Rio isn't the kind of place you're going to want to go."

Lee Lane, a visiting scholar with the conservative Hudson Institute, called the entire summit a venue for "empty symbolism," and said it would be a gift to Republicans if Obama attended.

"It would be foolish for the president to do anything beyond the absolute minimum necessary to keep the environmentalists from complaining too loudly about it," Lane said. He also had low expectations for the lofty goals Rio+20 leaders have set out to address energy poverty.

"They'll talk about that, but how is that going to be accomplished?" Lane said. "The reality is, I think most of us wish this weren't true, but the reality is that fossil fuels are still the cheapest source of energy on the planet."

Environmentalists like Wirth, meanwhile, said they have no doubt the Rio conference will be an important step in their quest to expand access to electricity and scale up green energy.

Some nations prepare commitments

Wirth said he believes that between eight and 15 countries will make "major commitments" on sustainable energy, and that there also will be a large package of specific energy efficiency measures. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, for example, has promoted work on appliance efficiency, an issue Sandalow has spoken about in the context of Rio+20.

That could turn into a concrete proposal to enact global standards for refrigerator efficiency, he said, saying 20 agreements of that nature would be a major success.

"It's not as sexy as 'Oh, we're going to have a climate treaty,' or 'We're going to have solar panels in everybody's backyard.' But this is the stuff of government," Wirth said.

Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he thinks the United States isn't alone in taking a slow approach to Rio.

"Let's be honest," he said. "The engagement of most countries is not what it needs to be for a summit which is about shaping the future world agenda on the environment and sustainable development. The amount of attention to this meeting is not what it needs to be, given the high stakes."