The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognise their dominant role in climate change has stolen precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said.

"Progress is slow," one delegate from a European nation, who asked not to be identified, told AFP.

"Brazil, India and China are trying to put on the shoulders of industrialised nations the historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, in order to clear their own emissions (of blame) and to protect themselves in any discussion."

At least 400 scientists and experts from about 120 countries are attending the week-long session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's leading authority on global warming.

Their report, expected to be released on Friday after the closed-door meeting ends, aims to lay out ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent a climate catastrophe without seriously hurting the global economy.

But China has also insisted on specific figures, which lay the blame for global warming on rich nations, be inserted into the conclusions, according to documents obtained by AFP.

Developed countries should formally recognise they were responsible for 95 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from the pre-industrial era to 1950, and for 77 percent from 1950 to 2000, according to China's submission to the IPCC.

China also rejected phrasing that places the onus on the entire world to deal with climate change, instead urging the focus to be on rich nations whose per capita emissions of greenhouse gases are far higher than those of the developing world.

Various delegates told AFP the demands, made by China but backed by India, Brazil and other developing countries, were not relevant to this week's meeting because it was meant to specifically look at ways to mitigate climate change.

"This is not the point of this meeting. We are meant to be looking to the future," the European delegate who did not want to be named said.

Another sticking point has been China's insistence that cutting greenhouse gases will cost more to the global economy than the IPCC scientists had estimated, according to the Chinese submission and other sources at the conference.

One of the French delegates, Renaud Crassous, said China was proving to be a dominant force in this week's talks, while others said the United States -- the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases -- was remaining low key.

"China is distrustful regarding everything that could draw a conclusion that it is easy to reduce emissions," Crassous said.

Another delegate from the West, who also asked not to be identified, said the positions put forward by China, India and Brazil were part of a long-term negotiating strategy by the world's three most powerful developing nations.

They want to set the stage for other major international political events this year, such as the G8 leaders' summit in June in Germany and a United Nations climate change conference in Bali in December.

The developing world's big three want to make sure the pressure is on rich nations at these events to take the leading role in tackling global warming, the delegate from the West said.

One other source at this week's talks said China had been so aggressive in an effort to defend itself against rising criticism about its dramatic increase in greenhouse gas output over recent years.

China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases sometime before 2010, according to the International Energy Agency.

"China have been cornered and they've hit back," the source said.

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