Industrial nations releasing more greenhouses gases

Berlin, GermanyBonn, Germany - Greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries have continued to rise despite goals set by the Kyoto agreement to curb carbon pollution, a UN body said Monday.

The UN Climate Change Secretariat said planet-warming gases released by the 40 industrial states that signed up the Kyoto framework had increased an average 2.3 per cent between 2000-2006.

This required urgent action, said Yvo de Boer, secretary general of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who disclosed the data in Bonn.

He said a UN conference taking place in the Polish city of Poznan from December 1-12 needed to make "good progress" on a replacement for the Kyoto accord, which expires in 2012.

The data showed that despite the recent increase in emissions, the overall figure was still 5 per cent below the 1990 level laid down in the Kyoto protocol.

The initial decrease was due mainly to the collapse of the old economic structure in the former Soviet-bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Climate Change Secretariat said.

The Kyoto protocol requires industrial nations to collectively curb greenhouse gas emissions between 2008-2012 by 5 per cent in relation to 1990. (dpa)

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