Diplomatic sources said Canada's Environment Minister Stephane Dion, the conference host, had arranged a meeting of 30 key countries in the talks on Tuesday morning in a bid to get talks moving again.

More than 100 ministers were to gather in Montreal later in the day for the start of the main part of the UN climate change conference that has been going on since November 28. The conference ends Friday.

Much of the debate is centred on whether developing countries that under the Kyoto protocol do not have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases should be included in new committments to come into effect after 2012.

The conference is discussing the 1992 UN climate change convention and holding the first follow up meeting to the Kyoto protocol which came into effect in February, but which has been rejected by the United States and Australia.

Countries are trying to agree on whether the general committments made under the convention and the specific committments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases should be extended.

Under the Kyoto protocol, industrial countries must start examining new pollution restrictions -- to come into effect from 2012 -- this year.

Diplomatic sources said little progress had been made, despite negotiations that went on late into Monday night.

The Group of 77 developing countries have insisted that the industrialised powers must still bear the brunt of any new post-Kyoto restrictions. One of the reasons the United States refused to ratify Kyoto was because major polluters such as China and India were not affected by the accord.

Backed by the European Union and Japan, the Canadian minister said that cooperation must be as wide as possible to pursue measures after 2012.

He has tried to use the 1992 UN convention as a basis for talks so that the United States, China, India and Brazil are all involved in negotiations.

Many experts say that the emerging industrial powers will have to make committments -- even if they are less restrictive than for the industrialised economies -- for any new effort to work.

A group of 23 US senators -- including four Republicans -- on Monday called on President George W. Bush to take a lead role in global warming negotiations.

"In our view, a deliberate decision by the administration not to engage in such discussions, solely because they may include the topic of future binding emissions reductions requirements, is inconsistent with the obligations of the United States" under the 1992 UN treaty, the senators said in a letter to Bush.

"In any event, the United States should, at a minimum, refrain from blocking or obstructing such discussions amongst parties to the convention, since that would be inconsistent with its ongoing treaty obligations," the letter said.

Some environmental groups say however that the talks should go ahead without the United States so that some progress is made in what they consider to be an ever more crucial battle against global warming.

related report
EU seeks to cool dispute with US on global warming
Montreal (AFP) Dec 05 - The European Union sought on Monday to defuse discord with the United States over greenhouse gas emissions as world ministers were due to join a UN meeting on climate change Tuesday.

EU representatives said they would not insist on precise limits for greenhouse gas emissions in talks with the United States, which rejected the Kyoto protocol on climate change over its opposition to specific targets.

"The US does not have to fear that we want to come the next day and say, now you take on Kyoto targets," Sarah Hendry, head of the British delegation, told reporters.

"There is concern on the part of the US that we are jumping straight into negotiations," said Hendry, whose government currently holds the rotating EU presidency. But she said the talks were only a starting point.

Signed by 34 governments, the Kyoto protocol requires countries to cut gases that cause global warming. The protocol became fully operational Wednesday after the UN Climate Change Conference adopted final rules by consensus.

With the Kyoto protocol due to expire in 2012, the Montreal conference is trying to set out preliminary plans to further cut emissions when the accord ends.

EU ministers hope to pursue follow-up arrangements with signatory countries while also opening up sensitive talks with governments that rejected Kyoto, including major polluters such as the United States.

The United States, which emits 25 percent of the world's so-called greenhouse gases, made clear last week that it opposed any talk of extending Kyoto-style limits on their emission.

Since 2002, the administration of President George W. Bush said it has embarked on a voluntary policy to reduce US emissions by 18 percent by relying on new technology and without harming the US economy.

The Kyoto treaty called for reductions in emissions of six percent from 1990 levels but the US argued the limits apply more stringently to developed countries than to developing ones.

Environmental activists criticized the conciliatory EU approach, saying European states should instead assert leadership over the issue and not allow Washington to set the agenda.

The European Union "appears to be working on the basis of a major strategic mistake" by moving to accommodate the US government, said Tony Jupiter, director of Friends of the Earth. The European Union needed to be "taking the lead," Jupiter said.

Global warming is accelerating and the environmental and economic effects could be disastrous if governments fail to act, activists said.

Concrete limits needed to be agreed well before the Kyoto protocol expired in 2012, said Jennifer Morgan from the World Wide Fund for Nature.

"We want a clear, independent process to negotiate the post-2012 framework under the Kyoto protocol. We want this by 2008," Morgan said.

US environmental groups opposed to the Bush administration's stance presented the US consulate here on Saturday with 600,000 signatures on a petition seeking action on global warming, organizers said.

Some 10,000 delegates and members of environmental groups are meeting here for the conference, which runs through December 9.

So-called greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, which is generated by burning of fossil fuels like gas, oil and coal, enlarge an atmospheric layer that blocks radiant heat from escaping Earth into space.

Scientists worry that the resulting increased temperatures are melting polar ice caps and heating tropical seas, with unknown and possibly disastrous consequences for Earth's weather, flora and fauna.

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