And Ottawa gave Kyoto the worst snub to date in March, saying Canada would be unable to reach a goal of cutting fossil fuel emissions from factories, power plants and cars by 2012.

"EU member states seem to be competing with each other to give more beneficial allocations (to industry). It won't add up," said Terry Barker, Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research at Cambridge University.

At the heart of much climate debate is who will pay -- and how much -- to curb what many scientists say could be drastic climate changes ranging from droughts to rising sea levels.

"Environmentalists said Kyoto would be virtually cost-free," said Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish Kyoto sceptic who heads the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Lax EU goals show "most countries are starting to realise that it will be very costly," he said.

Lomborg reckons Kyoto would cost US$150 billion a year if fully implemented and that fighting disease and hunger, ensuring clean water or promoting free trade would be money better spent.

Many other experts say costs are likely to be insignificant.

COSTS LOW?

A study in the journal Nature last month estimated that even the toughest global climate goals for the entire 21st century -- far beyond Kyoto -- would only brake growth of the world economy by one percentage point by 2100.

"The price of Kyoto will be less than many people thought," said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001, saying Kyoto would cost US jobs and wrongly omits poor nations. Many Kyoto supporters who bitterly criticised Bush at the time are now jibing at tough measures.

Among EU nations, for instance, both France and Germany on Thursday proposed plans that will allow rises in emissions.

Germany, Europe's biggest polluter, is proposing to cut its emissions by nearly 5.6 percent in 2008-12 from 2005-07. But it blew off the cap by offering all new power plants -- including those run on coal -- unlimited free emissions until 2022.

The EU Commission can reject schemes it considers too lax. Kyoto obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

"The Europeans will meet their target but the question is 'how?'. They are letting the large industrial sectors off easily," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy expert at Greenpeace.

He said governments would instead have to squeeze emissions by measures such as higher taxes on energy use -- muting the incentive for power stations to shift to cleaner technologies.

EU emissions overall rose by 0.4 percent in 2004 from 2003 but are 4.8 percent below 1990 levels thanks mainly to declines in eastern Europe after the collapse of Soviet-era industries.

Canada's new Conservative government has said it cannot meet its Kyoto goal. Emissions are likely to rise as it exploits oil sands made attractive by high oil prices above US$70 a barrel.

"As long as Canada is really keen on getting to these sands there is not much chance of reducing emissions," said Hermann Ott, director of the climate policy division at the German Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.

He said that Canada's coolness to Kyoto was bad news for anyone hoping that the United States might eventually sign up.