New technologies to reduce emissions of fossil-fuel gases, and their transfer to fast-growing populous countries such as India and China, took centre stage at the last day of a "round table" where open political discord over the Kyoto Protocol was carefully skirted.

Even so, the rift between the European Union, which champions the UN's emissions-cutting pact, and the United States, which derides it as too unfair and too costly for its economy, swiftly emerged.

US Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, outlining President George W. Bush's plan on climate change, said the goal was to promote "more effective use and access to" energy efficiency and alternative sources.

"We should look at new ways of doing this, domestically and internationally," she said.

The range of options should include solar and wind sources, as well as nuclear power and capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and storing it, and business should be given a key role, in "public-private partnerships" with government, said Dobriansky.

Nuclear power as an alternative to burning oil and coal is anathema to green groups, which wield great political clout in Europe.

These campaigners are also opposed to carbon sequestration, such as storing CO2 in so-called forest sinks or in deep underground pockets, fearing the risk that the gas could be released one day and thus add to the global-warming cycle.

In a veiled rebuttal of the US approach, Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen, speaking for the European Union said technology alone was "not an adequate response," and it had to be backed by targeted emissions cuts and help with reducing poverty.

"The Kyoto Protocol provides the incentive to do more in this direction," said Cullen.

"There is no excuse for not making efforts to reduce the emission intensity of our economies," said Canadian representative Lauren Smith, who said the Protocol's market mechanisms for doing this offered "real gains".

German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Green, stressed it was vital to use "the right technology" that did not make environmental problems worse.

He gave the examples of smarter insulation for office buildings that reduced use of air conditioners and heating, and the emerging potential of hydrogen as a means to replace oil for transport.

The two-day ministerial segment of the talks brings to a climax a December 1-12 meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol.

Bush walked out of the Protocol in 2001, delivering a crippling blow to the deal by depriving it of the world's biggest carbon polluter.

Two-thirds of the world's nations have ratified the Protocol so far, but it still needs approval by Russia in order to take effect.

The Protocol requires industrialised signatories to cut output of six "greenhouse" gases by 2008-2012 compared with their 1990 levels.

It offers three kinds of market mechanisms and incentives, in a rulebook of notorious complexity, to help them meet these goals.

SPACE.WIRE