Leaders of the Group of 20 began gathering in Pittsburgh yesterday to put the final touches on a pact to give long-term stability to the world economy, but they seem to be studiously avoiding the key to accomplishing that goal: regulation.

Motorcades of limousines -- probably more of them than the city has ever seen at one time -- ply the streets, and protesters rappel down the bridges and hang above the Ohio River to raise awareness on climate change. The police line downtown streets in riot gear. And it leaves residents bemused by all the attention their city is getting.

But that is just the street theater of the event. The real work of the G-20 -- or at least the groundwork -- will be done in a communique that probably already has been written.

Now, public agreement must be reached on how to stabilize the world economies to avoid another worldwide near-death financial experience like the one that happened a year ago.

The key to any lasting correction is for the United States to get its regulatory house in order, an effort that has barely begun.

Much as with the recent talks in New York on curbing climate change, some G-20 countries are likely to chide the United States for not making more progress on financial reform. Attention will be paid to how Washington plans to set effective rules of its own to keep markets steady beyond the current upturn and to slake the appetite of investors for risk instead of solid profit.

There is also the issue of controlling executive compensation and creating a consumer financial protection agency, both contentious issues domestically.

As other countries have reproached the United States for minimal proposals to address climate change issues, they are likely to expect some traction on the regulatory front -- including reining in risk-taking by big financial institutions and controlling compensation for their top performers.

Another item up for discussion at the G-20 is going to be how to get banks to fatten their capital cushions and limit leverage of that capital.

Whatever the intentions, there are at least two factors in the United States that will stall progress: First, national momentum has been lost for stringent regulation of financial markets and banks. Then, enough time has passed since the Obama economic rescue and bank bailout that lobbyists can do their work, which is to apply pressure for a lighter touch and minimal change.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen in Washington, said the Obama administration doesn't have much new to show off to world leaders in Pittsburgh. "The number of pieces of legislation passed? Zero," said Mr. Weissman, referring to new crisis-prevention rules.

Though the administration has pressed for an overhaul of financial regulations -- or the lack of them -- fundamental change is unlikely to come quickly.

In fact, Senate leaders have made clear that they would rather do it right than do it fast, especially since Republicans on key committees are going to offer resistance every step of the way. Plus, it is the first overhaul of the system since the 1930s.

"We've put a band-aid on," said John Irons, research policy director for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, a left-leaning think tank. "The current system is not stable. You have to change the system."

Mr. Irons said financial reform in Washington is an insider's game. Lobbyists already have "polluted the water pretty well," he said.

Lawmakers' preoccupation with U.S. health care reform, meanwhile, has pushed financial reform off the front burner. There also is talk of waiting until 2010 to await results from a commission looking into the reasons for the economic crisis.

Former Canadian Foreign Minister Barbara McDougall, who served in the Brian Mulroney government, said some U.S. regulatory efforts made in crisis mode have not turned out well. She pointed to the relatively speedy passage of legislation in 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley, also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, directed at boards and accounting firms in the wake of the Enron, Worldcom and several other major U.S. accounting scandals.

"Sarbanes-Oxley has become a real problem. It affects everyone beyond the United States who wants to make money in the United States," Ms. McDougall said in an interview. "It was a real step backwards in terms of regulatory reform, because it is so bureaucratic and so intrusive. It's an example of what happens when people have a knee-jerk response to a crisis."

With the United States moving slowly, the question is whether there will be much appetite for the global coordination spoken about in April, as the same G-20 world leaders met in London, professing the need to rebuild a failed regulatory system that allowed speculation and creation of "exotic" financial instruments and provided little, if any, regulatory oversight and enforcement.

With the recession pronounced over, the emphasis has already shifted, leaving consumer-related groups to remind world leaders that improving numbers belie the reality of what a largely unregulated economy created.

Or, as they put it in a letter to Mr. Obama before the G-20 summit: "In this era of globalization, success on domestic reforms will require reforming the current rules of the global economy."

Except change begins at home.