They also heaped praise on Japan's plan for a 25-percent cut in its carbon pollution, but said only a wider deal in Copenhagen would prompt the European Union (EU) to spice its own offer on emissions reduction.

"We are here with a warning, and the warning is that the world will sleepwalk towards December and not realise that it has to up its game if we are to get a deal," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in Paris.

"The warning is that Copenhagen is in the balance. The warning is that if we leave it to business as usual and negotiations as usual, we will not get the sort of deal that we need."

Miliband was flanked by France's Bernard Kouchner and Carl Bildt of Sweden, whose country is current president of the European Union (EU), at a seminar at the Sciences-Po school of political science.

Danish deputy foreign minister Claus Grube, whose country hosts the climate marathon, also attended.

"There's only three months left to the Copenhagen conference," said Kouchner. "Things are urgent."

Kouchner pointed to the long list of ills that faced the planet without action.

These included, he said, the risk of 200 million "climate refugees" -- people forced from their homes by hunger, storms, droughts and related conflicts -- by mid-century.

"The outcome is not preordained, but we must make haste. The challenge is huge."

The December 7-18 talks under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that drive perilous global warming.

The treaty will also spell out ways of helping poor countries make a switch to a low-carbon economy, thus avoiding the polluting path trodden by their richer counterparts.

But progress has been stymied over who will be first to declare their hand and by rival demands from rich and poor countries that the other side make concessions.

Bildt said the EU would be meeting with the leaders of Brazil, China, Russia and the United States in the runup to Copenhagen.

Questioned by AFP, Bildt and Miliband hailed Japan for its announcement on Monday that it planned to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

But they said this would not by itself prompt the EU -- which until now has led the bidding in the climate poker -- to deepen its own emissions cut.

The EU has unilaterally promised to go from a cut of 20 percent by 2020 over 1990 levels to 30 percent if other major players follow suit.

The move to 30 percent "is dependent on a deal at Copenhagen, the way things are at the moment," said Bildt.

"We have committed ourselves to go to 30 percent if there is a deal in Copenhagen. When I listen to the technical experts, they are now somewhat more optimistic on the possibility of doing that without major sacrifices."

Miliband said the announcement by premier-in-waiting Yukio Hatoyama was "one of the most significant changes for some time" and a sign of "leadership."

"The European Union has made clear that it will go to a 30 percent cut in the context of a global deal. So I think that this is a helpful spur to the discussions. We look forward to final decisions in America, Canada, elsewhere, but also obviously from the emerging countries as well."

Britain, Denmark, Finland and Sweden will meet at foreign minister level in Copenhagen on Thursday, the Danish government said on Tuesday.

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