The two-day mustering of signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the first since Russia started sending out conflicting signals on whether it would ratify Kyoto, the only global deal to cut greenhouse gases blamed for changing Earth's climate.

Diplomats said divisions over Kyoto were so profound that the meeting had been framed to skirt any controversy or decision-making and would instead use "round tables" to air specific problems of climate change.

"The essential thing now is to get the Protocol implemented, it really is not the time for a row," a delegate from a European country told AFP.

"Even the word 'discussions' is being avoided. The preferred term is 'conversations'."

A total of 180 countries were being represented at the meeting, about 90 of them at ministerial level.

But doubts circulated whether Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would show up, as scheduled, to make a speech at the opening ceremonies -- an absence that would confirm Kyoto's political isolation.

The Kyoto Protocol is the most ambitious environmental agreement ever attempted.

It requires industrialised signatories to cut emissions of six carbon gases by a timetable of 2008-2012 as compared to their 1990 levels.

The chief target is carbon dioxide (CO2), derived from burning the fossil fuels -- the biggest energy source in use today.

Thus, requiring countries to turn to alternative, cleaner sources or to make their energy use more efficient carries an economic cost.

This was the main reason cited in March 2001 by President George Bush for walking away from the deal that had been signed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

Abandonment by the United States, a profligate energy user and the biggest single CO2 polluter in the world, put Kyoto in intensive care.

The European Union (EU) championed the Protocol and made concessions to other reluctant countries to get a deal in 2001 that completed all the major points in its highly complex rulebook.

But in recent months, senior Russian officials have been ambiguous about whether President Vladimir Putin will put the draft to a vote in parliament.

With America out of the picture -- it remains a signatory, though, of the UNFCCC -- Russia's ratification is vital for transforming Kyoto from a pile of documents into an international treaty.

SPACE.WIRE