Bonn, Germany - Industrialized countries are continuing to emit more greenhouse gasses 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 40 industrial states that signed up the Kyoto framework increased an average 2.3 per cent between 2000-2006.

Overall emissions were 5 per cent below the 1990 benchmark level set in Kyoto, largely due to the collapse of the old economic structure in the former Soviet-bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe.

But emissions have been on the rise since the start of the century, especially in economies in transition, which have seen greenhouse gas pollution grow 7.4 per cent between 2000-2006, the data showed.

Urgent action was needed to remedy the situation, said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the Bonn-based United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC).

He said a 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 figures clearly underscore the urgency for the UN negotiating process to make good progress in Poznan and move forward quickly in designing a new agreement to respond to the challenge of climate change," de Boer said.

The Kyoto protocol requires industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions an average 5 per cent over 1990 levels.

De Boer said that carbon trading mechanisms set up to help countries meet their Kyoto pledges were working well. "This is an important message, not least for the Poznan meeting," he said.

Some 188 parties to the UNFCCC have ratified the Kyoto protocol and 40 of them have agreed to curb their emissions by 2012. The United States has failed to ratify the Kyoto pact, but still remains a member of the UNFCCC.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan constitutes the half- way mark of a two-year negotiating process, set to culminate in an ambitious international climate change deal in Copenhagen next year.

In Poland, negotiators will take stock of the progress made in the first year of the talks and map out what needs to be done to reach agreement at the end of 2009. (dpa)