"Realism has set in in discussions among key nations... the realisation that time is running out" ahead of key UN talks in Copenhagen in December, said Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme, as the three-day talks wound up in Syracuse, Italy.

"I do leave Syracuse very much concerned that there is no clear pathway to resolving the gaps that remain," Steiner admitted, saying the main stumbling blocks were setting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and financing for the greening of developing countries.

Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc said "great mistrust" remained between North and South (the historical northern industrial powerbase and emerging powers in the southern hemisphere), but both sides agreed that they could make "substantial compromises" appropriate to their means and situations.

Since the talks here were not required to produce decisions, "they allowed for constructive exchanges between the G8 countries and the others," Minc told reporters.

Brazil proposed a 10 percent tax on oil industry profits to help poor countries join the fight against global warming, he said.

The development aid charity Oxfam complained of a "first step syndrome" in climate change talks, saying the Syracuse meeting was no different.

"Lots of declarations of principle, but no clear and measurable commmitment," Oxfam said in a statement.

The meeting was among several forums on the way to the Copenhagen meeting aimed at sealing an international pact for curbing greenhouse gases beyond 2012.

"You can say they kicked the can down the road," agreed Kim Carstensen, director of the Worldwide Fund for Nature's Global Climate Initiative, while praising the delegates for linking environmental and economic crises in a credible way.

"The positive side is the environment ministers have actually taken that theme as something they own and as a message to their leaders," Carstensen told AFP.

The G8-Plus talks here brought together the environment ministers from Group of Eight members Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States and their counterparts from Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea.

Overall, the G8 countries are responsible for more than 40 percent of the world's carbon gas emissions.

The United States and China are the world's top two carbon polluters, but US per capita emissions are four to five times those of China and about double those of Europe.

The delegates spelled out "frankly and clearly" the issues on which G8 heads of state and government should "devote their leadership capacities" at their July summit, Italian Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said.

These include improving energy efficiency, developing renewal energy, sustainable agriculture and transportation and building and protecting ecological infrastructure, a top UN delegate said earlier.

The talks in Sicily were buoyed by a sea change in US environmental policy following years of disengagement on environmental issues.

US delegate Lisa Jackson said Thursday she brought a "message of hope" from US President Barack Obama, who already boasts of having made more progress on US energy policy in his first three months in office than the United States has seen in 30 years.

"It's a good feeling to know that the world is waiting to welcome the US to the table and is not too frustrated by the lack of leadership in the past," Jackson said.

The EPA chief on Friday urged stronger action to avert environmental "exposures (that) uniquely affect children."

She told the delegates: "We must work in earnest to ensure that their bright future is not overcast by the clouds of pollution, climate change and other environmental degradation."

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