World's report on global warming ''Must try harder''

HELSINKI, Nov 1 (Reuters) More than a decade after world leaders pledged to avert ''dangerous'' climate change, a report card on their efforts so far might read: ''Must try harder''.

Rising industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, acrimony between Washington and many of its allies over policy and a report this week that the world economy risks a 1930s-style Depression by failing to act are among reasons for gloom.

Yet some see hope in widening concern that the use of fossil fuels is stoking global warming -- indicated by billions of dollars invested in ''clean coal'', wind or solar energy or by campaigns to get people to turn off unnecessary lights at home.

''Of course, we must try harder,'' said Finland's Environment Minister Jan-Erik Enestam, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

''What we have in place at the moment is nothing more than a very modest start,'' said Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nation's Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn.

Even so, he added: ''I think we've achieved a great deal.'' The UN's 1992 Climate Convention and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol laid out principles for trimming emissions from power plants, factories and cars -- seen by most scientists as the main causes of global warming.

De Boer said some nations were now talking of a need for far deeper cuts, of 60-80 per cent by 2050.

Almost 190 governments will discuss the next steps in the fight against global warming when they meet in Kenya from Nov. 6 - 17 for annual talks reviewing climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012 and the United Nations says progress is urgently needed on a global deal beyond then.

However, few delegates expect the Nairobi meeting to yield any big breakthroughs.

DANGER The 1992 Convention's stated goal is to avert ''dangerous'' human interference with the climate system, but it does not define ''dangerous''.

Some environmental groups see danger already in signs of a shrinking Arctic icecap, rare storms and heatwaves, or in the fact that the 10 last years -- with the exception of 1996 -- were the 10 warmest since records began in the 19th century.

''The world is not doing very well at all'' in slowing warming, said Steve Sawyer, a climate expert at Greenpeace.

Still, he said many people were ''beginning to wake up'' to a need for urgent action.

However, a dispute over the Kyoto Protocol overshadows all efforts. Kyoto obliges 35 industrial nations to cut emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

''There is of course a problem because the United States and Australia are not in the Protocol,'' Enestam said.

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