Week-long talks in Bangkok are aimed at laying the groundwork for global action after the Kyoto Protocol's commitments run out in 2012 for rich nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating up the planet.

The United States is the main holdout from the Kyoto Protocol, arguing it is too costly. But Kyoto signatories such as Canada, Japan and some southern European countries are all well off-track in their goals.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made clear after taking office two years ago that his government would follow its own climate goals, not those of the Kyoto Protocol.

"The biggest concern comes from countries like Canada that have openly begun voicing doubts about whether they will comply or even care about complying," said Antonio Hill, senior policy adviser at British aid group Oxfam.

"We need to make darn sure that all countries comply," he said.

Kyoto calls for an average of five percent emission reductions by 2012 from 1990 levels, a sliver of cuts of up to 40 percent by 2020 proposed by the European Union in ongoing talks.

Canada has joined the United States in insisting on mandatory emissions cuts for fast-growing emerging economies such as China and India.

"The Canadian government is out here pointing the finger at other countries at a time when we've said we're not even going to bother reaching our targets," said Dale Marshall, climate change analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental group.

"It's not just that Canada has very little credibility, but it undermines the whole process," he said.

Kyoto required Canada to slash emissions by six percent by 2012 under Kyoto, but as of 2006 its gas output had soared by 35 percent from 1990 levels.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a nation that fails to meet its obligations can be penalised with tougher requirements under a future deal.

With few people noticing, the UN body that supervises the Kyoto Protocol last month ruled for the first time that a country had violated the treaty.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) found that Greece was not properly monitoring emissions, official documents showed. The UNFCCC will study possible punishment later.

Kyoto violators can only be restricted from the growing market in trading carbon emissions credits.

But Kyoto's supporters hope the biggest incentive of all comes from the growing awareness about global warming. On Saturday, tens of millions of people switched off their lightbulbs in the latest worldwide green campaign.

"I personally think that maybe the moral sanction is much more significant than the legal sanction," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC.

"I think that no self-respecting government would want to see a newspaper headline that it has failed to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol," he said.

That moral pressure appeared to work in the case of Japan, which has recently shifted stance and started to consider mandatory caps on emissions by industry.

Japan, which hopes to show leadership on climate change when it hosts the Group of Eight summit of major economies in July, was stung by green groups' criticism at a UN climate conference in December in Bali, Indonesia.

"It went all the way to the level of the prime minister, who was very concerned about the criticism that Japan was getting," said Alden Meyer, strategy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US pressure group.

He noted that climate change was a factor in the defeat last year of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a leading opponent of Kyoto.

"Nobody wants to be a climate scofflaw and pariah on this issue, which is moving up the radar screen as a geopolitical issue of first magnitude," Meyer said.

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