Economic planning chiefs from India and China said Wednesday that they were implementing cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from industry, transport and housing which many scientists blame for global warming, by promoting cleaner energy use.

But they are reluctant to submit to compulsory limits that might hamper industry in the short term while rich nations fail to meet the emissions targets they set themselves.

"The industralised countries have not met the obligations they took on in the Kyoto Protocol," said Montek Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India.

"And not all industralised countries joined them," he added, referring to the United States. "It's quite clear that business as usual doesn't work."

Industrialised countries are trying to get developing nations to join the next round of "post-Kyoto" mandatory emissions limits from 2012. Poor nations were left out of the current curbs because they might hamper development.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, Vice-Chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, insisted that the Asian giant was cutting emissions and targeting further cuts.

However, China's economic growth rate means that overall emissions there are still rising.

Zhang highlighted cement and steel production in China which pollutes about 40 percent more than technologies used in the West, while buildings were half as energy efficient as in Europe.

"We need to try to develop this but we want technology to save energy. We want to strengthen cooperation with developed countries," Zhang said, calling for a "know-how exchange".

Jacques Aigrain, chief executive of one of the world's largest reinsurance firms, SwissRe, said highly populated and growing countries like China and India would need to continue to use coal, regarded as a highly polluting fossil fuel.

Alternative energy -- such as solar, wind power or crop-based biofuels -- could only provide 20 to 50 percent of energy needs in most parts of the world, while transfer to nuclear power was too slow or risky, experts in Davos said.

"It is essential that we facilitate the transfer of clean energy solutions to both India and China. Coal ... is the only readily available energy source in those two countries, so we need access to clean coal solutions," Aigrain said.

Meanwhile, another emerging nation in Davos, Brazil, was promoting its booming biofuel industry, based on ethanol made from sugar cane, and its exports of environmentally-friendly technology.

About 82 percent of cars made there use a mix of ethanol and gasoline fuel, according to the Brazilian government.

Brazil's Industry Minister Luis Fernando Furlan was applauding US President George W. Bush's announcement this week of plans to cut US gasoline consumption over the next decade in favour of ethanol.

"For Brazil, the growth in ethanol consumption in the world is beneficial, whether we export fuel or not," Furlan told journalists.

"It still means new business for Brazilian companies, because we have had this technology for 30 years," he explained.