"We would have liked to announce and welcome here all parties for the first meeting of the Kyoto Protocol. Unfortunately, that is not possible," said Italian Environment Minister Altero Matteoli, opening a conference that delegates from 180 countries were expected to attend.

"This does not mean that we must drop our guard," he said.

"(...) Indeed we must reinforce global strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and for adapting to climate change for the most vulnerable regions of the planet," he said.

Kyoto requires industrialised signatories to cut emissions of six types of carbon gases, mainly emitted by fossil fuels, which trap the Sun's heat, thus warming the atmosphere and nourishing a potentially catastrophic climate change.

The agreement was forced into intensive care after the United States, the biggest single polluter, withdrew from it in March 2001 in one of President George W. Bush's first acts in office.

Even though its complex rulebook has now been completed, Russia has yet to ratify the agreement and remains ambiguous over its intentions of doing so.

Moscow's ratification is needed to transform the Protocol into an international treaty, giving a huge fillip to the campaign to combat climate change.

Hungarian Environment Minister Miklos Persanyi said the importance of the protocol had been made clear by the support it had received from around the world.

"The link between the higher concentration of these gases in the atmosphere and human activities causing these emissions is already unquestionable," said Persanyi, sworn in as annual president of the UN negotiations.

Despite the controversy surrounding Kyoto, the UN's senior climate change official, Joke Waller-Hunter, told delegates that the international community had not slowed in its efforts to combat climate change.

Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), pointed to provisions in the Protocol for a market in carbon emissions as a sign of this enthusiasm.

"Emissions-trading activities at the regional, national, sub-national and company level have advanced rapidly and we have entered a period of 'learning by doing'," she said.

Even though Kyoto's political future is still unclear, man-made global warming is no longer in doubt among mainstream scientists, and more and more businesses are taking an interest in it, sensing a potential for profit.

"For the first time at an international level the Kyoto Protocol offers the architecture and the instruments making it possible to take up an environmental challenge and at the same time make it a factor of economic growth," Matteoli said.

In a statement, Climate Action Network, which gathers over 300 green groups, said there had been enough talking.

"We can't afford to wait any longer," Steve Guilbeault of Greenpeace International said.

"Ministers at this meeting must speed up the process and make sure that practical measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are put in place," he said.

The Milan talks are taking place under the umbrella of the UNFCCC, of which the United States remains a member, even though it has quit Kyoto.

Although no declaration is due to be released when the meeting ends on December 12, the forum should provide a pointer to Kyoto's chances of survival.

TERRA.WIRE