The current environmental accord imposes reductions of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions on industrialized countries until 2012.

Canada will host the UN conference from November 28 to December 9 in Montreal to discuss for the first time what will come thereafter.

"We will discuss a post-Kyoto deal during the conference, but we're obviously not going to agree on a second phase with clear objectives right away," Dion told reporters. "That will take several years."

He also said Canada hoped to open talks with countries that had not ratified the Kyoto Protocol in order to encourage them to get onboard, alluding to the United States and Australia, as well as big polluters China and India, which are not obligated under the pact to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Dion, who met with environment ministers from some 40 countries last week in Ottawa to prepare for the Montreal conference, recognized that it would be difficult to reconcile each country's diverging views.

But, "we have made progress during the past year," he said.

Dion also dismissed newspaper reports that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had made a shocking about-face in his support for the Kyoto Protocol and would side with the United States while predicting the accord's demise beyond

"I would be very surprised if it was true. I was with British Environment Minister Margaret Beckett just a few days ago and she said that the prime minister had been misunderstood," Dion said.

"Mrs Beckett was very clear. The United Kingdom expects to meet its Kyoto obligations and work with the same determination as before within the framework of the protocol," he said.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.