By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe was expected to be elected head of the Commission on Sustainable Development, the main U.N. inter-governmental body on environment.

The European Union has led objections to Zimbabwe's candidacy as well as to the entire two-week annual session of the commission, which it contends has degenerated into meaningless talk with no sense of urgency for setting targets for countries or regions.

The 53-nation commission is expected to vote late on Friday or early Saturday on Zimbabwe as chairman to replace oil- producer Qatar. The post rotates among regions and Africa nominated Francis Nheme, Zimbabwe,'s environment and tourism minister as its candidate.

Efforts to get Africans to switch failed, EU diplomats said, noting that the 25-member union had imposed travel sanctions, among other penalties, against officials in President Robert Mugabe's government for human rights abuses.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, widely blamed on Mugabe's policies, such as the seizure of white-held farms to resettle the landless.

Mugabe, the country's sole ruler since independence, denies mismanaging the economy and blames Western sanctions for the crisis.

Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said African leaders were told that "it would not be possible for us to invite the next chair, if it is from the Government of Zimbabwe or to have contacts with the chair."

"We asked our African colleagues to be aware of this situation," said Gabriel, whose country holds the presidency of the European Union.

Zimbabwe's U.N. ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, however, told the BBC, "What has sustainable development to do with human rights?"

On Friday, Tom Casey, the U.S. State Department deputy spokesman, said: "We don't think that Zimbabwe would be a particularly effective leader of this body."

He said development in the southern African country has "been going in only one direction -- and it's backwards."

The U.N. conference aims to produce policies to advance long-term energy solutions that can contribute to economic and social development while protecting the environment. The object is to persuade developing nations to leapfrog past industrial countries dependent on fossil fuel.

But with climate change on everyone's agenda, Germany's Gabriel said the conference might not produce an outcome document, with the EU objecting to a lack of specifics and targets for both the developed and the developing world.

"The time for debate and reports is over and we have to act" Gabriel said. "What we see here is a lot of papers on the table."

The minister said if the CSD did not reform itself in the next few months, it would have no role in the international debate over climate change, although it was the only large body to draw participation from dozens of nations on development and environment.

The United States also is not anxious for any binding targets to be set. The Bush administration, which has not committed itself to mandatory caps on greenhouse gases, looks to China and India to do so first.

But China wants the United States to make a major commitment, like the European Union has done, saying its emissions of carbon dioxide, a by-produce of fossil fuels, is far below what Americans use on a per capita basis.

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