Economic revival in Russia after a downturn since the collapse of the Soviet Union contributed to stoke emissions, it said in an annual report. But emissions also rose since 2000 in the European Union, Japan, the United States and Canada.

"Industrialised countries will need to intensify their efforts to implement strong policies which reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN climate change secretariat in Bonn.

A British report on Monday also said that ignoring climate change could lead to an economic downturn on the scale of the 1930s Depression -- far more than the costs of acting to head off the problem.

The climate change secretariat said the 2004 rise put overall emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, just 3.3 percent below 18.6 billion tonnes in the Kyoto benchmark year of 1990.

SOVIET COLLAPSE

And 2004 emissions were the highest since just after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, defying efforts at cuts meant to avert disastrous changes such as more floods, erosion, heatwaves and higher sea levels.

Thirty-five countries have agreed to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol by about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Ministers will review Kyoto in Nairobi at annual climate talks from Nov. 6-17.

President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing that it was a straitjacket that would damage the US economy and wrongly excluded developing nations. The United States is the world's number one source of emissions.

In 2000, before the revival in Russian industry was felt, overall emissions had been 5.6 percent below 1990 levels. De Boer said it was a "worrying fact" that emissions in former communist nations had risen by 4.1 percent from 2000-04.

Despite the rises, De Boer said that Kyoto countries still had a "good chance" of meeting their pledged cuts if they quickly applied planned domestic measures and exploited options such as trading greenhouse gases.

Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Monaco and Sweden were "relatively close" to goals under the Protocol, it said. But many others were way off target.

Among Kyoto nations, Spain was highest at 49.0 percent over 1990 levels in 2004, ahead of Portugal on 41.0 percent with Canada and Greece both 26.6 percent over 1990. Canada has said its Kyoto goal cannot be reached.

Further down the list, the United States was 15.8 percent above 1990 levels with the EU as a whole 0.6 percent below 1990.

Kyoto countries as a whole were 15.3 percent below 1990 levels in 2004. That was mainly thanks to Russia, where emissions were still 32 percent below 1990 levels despite the economic upturn.