Environment ministers from around the world are setting down positions on the future shape of the Kyoto Protocol, the UN pact that seeks to reduce greenhouse gases that stoke global warming.

Sources say that, with the exception of Washington, a consensus appears to be emerging for holding negotiations over the next couple of years on commitments after Kyoto's current pledging period runs out in 2012.

Scientists say that this "son of Kyoto" must deliver swingeing cuts in carbon emissions, otherwise the Earth may suffer catastrophic damage to its climate system.

Such reductions, though, will only be possible if they embrace the world's biggest polluters -- the United States, which walked away from Kyoto in 2001, and China, which as a developing country is currently exempt from making targeted emissions reductions, as well as India, another fast-growing, hugely populous country.

The proposal floated by Canada, the host country, is for two years of negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the main result of the famous 1992 Rio Summit.

Details about the scope and goal of these proposed talks are being deliberately left vague to avoid a diplomatic blowup.

The United States found itself isolated Wednesday after its stalwart ally, Australia, backed the Canadian idea.

"The reality is that we can only make meaningful global greenhouse gas reductions if effective action is taken by all the major emitting countries," Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said.

The United States bluntly rejected the idea.

"It is our belief that progress cannot be made through these formalised discussions," Paula Dobriansky, US under secretary for democracy and global affairs, said Wednesday.

"We believe that the best approach and the best way forward is one that takes into account diversified approaches and differing opinions. One size does not fit all."

Chronically dependent on oil, the United States said it would not ratify Kyoto because of the cost to its economy.

Reducing the pollution carries a price because it requires tougher fuel efficiency and a switch to alternative energies and clean technology, which have a hard time establishing themselves in a market dominated by oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy.

Developing countries, gathered in a 132-nation group, said responsibility for fixing global warming lay primarily with the rich countries that had caused it by their reckless burning of fossil fuels in the last century.

"Our emissions of CO2 are but three percent of the world's total, while we have 17 percent of the global poulation," Indian Environment Minister Thiru Raja said on Thursday.

"Even with eight-percent annual GDP growth, which we hope to attain in the near future, and which is absolutely essential to sustain if we are to succeed in eliminating mass poverty in our lifetime, it will be many decades before India's GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions approach anything like the current world average."

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Ibrahim al-Naimi was even more emphatic.

"Any attempt to include developing countries in future [emissions cuts] commitments is unacceptable," he said, adding that rich countries should honour their pledges to help poor countries, including oil-exporting nations whose revenues will be hit by the switch to alternative energies.

"It will not be possible for petroleum-exporting countries to bear the burden of the Convention and Protocol resulting from the projected drop in global consumption of oil," he said.

The three-day meeting at ministerial level began on Wednesday, crowning a 12-day gathering that has drawn 8,700 participants.

Sources said that negotiators reached agreement on procedures for adopting a compliance mechanism for policing Kyoto.

The deal had been blocked by Saudi Arabia, which had insisted on an approval procedure that could have held up the compliance system for years, claiming that oil-producing states should receive compensation from industrialised countries for revenues lost by a switch to cleaner fuels.

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