EU emissions of the six carbon-based gases targeted for cuts under the Kyoto Protocol rose by 1.0 percent in 2001, the latest year for which figures are available, over 2000, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.

It blamed a colder winter, which caused many households to burn more fossil fuels, and also higher emissions from road transport.

The Kyoto Protocol sets a deadline of 2008-2012 for industrialised signatories to make a reduction in greenhouse gases as compared to the levels that prevailed in 1990.

The United States -- the biggest culprit, accounting by itself for a quarter of all pollution -- abandoned the protocol in 2001 after President George W. Bush took office.

The European Union, which has championed Kyoto after the US walkout, has pledged a reduction of eight percent, which is shared among its 15 members.

By the end of 2001, the decrease was 2.3 percent compared with 1990 levels, the EEA said. In 2000, emissions were 3.3 lower than in 1990 and in 1999 3.6 percent lower.

Ten of the 15 "are heading towards overshooting their agreed share... by a wide margin," the Copenhagen-based EEA warned.

These are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

In Austria and Finland, part of the problem was lower rainfall, which reduced output from hydro-electric plants and obliged both countries to import electricity derived from fossil fuels.

The EU country that has done least to comply with its Kyoto promise is Ireland. It has been allowed to increase its pollution by 13 percent compared with 1990 levels, but in 2001 the level was already 31 percent higher.

In 2000, the EU's overall emissions were 0.3 percent higher than in 1999.

Greenhouse gases hang in the atmosphere like an invisible shroud, trapping solar heat rather than let it radiate safely out into space.

Scientists say that so many billions of tonnes of these gases have been spewed out, through burning oil, gas and coal, that Earth's climate system faces possibly catastrophic change in the coming decades.

Kyoto's framework was sketched in 1997, but it took four years to agree its highly complex rulebook. The accord requires ratification by Russia to take effect.

SPACE.WIRE