US biggest polluter

In an annual update on global-warming pollution, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said that, compared with the benchmark year of 1990, the 41 industrialised countries it monitors trimmed their emissions by 3.3 percent by the end of 2004.

But this was mainly due to the slump in the former Soviet bloc economies in the 1990s, which forced the closure or overhaul of thousands of power stations and factories that spewed out carbon dioxide.

Because of that historic change, countries in eastern and central Europe had a decrease in emissions from 1990-2004 of 36.8 percent. But from 2000-2004, they in fact increased their pollution by 4.1 percent as their economies emerged from the post-Soviet crash.

In contrast, the other industrialised countries saw an increase in pollution of 11 percent from 1990-2004. From 2000-2004, the increase was two percent.

"Industrialised countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse-gas emissions," the UNFCCC's executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, warned.

The report applies to so-called Annex 1 countries of the UNFCCC, the offshoot of the famous 1992 Rio Summit on the planet's environmental future and parent of the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gases. Annex 2 parties are developing countries and the poorer ex-Soviet republics.