"What I've heard in the corridors is a range of years from 2008-10. That seems the ballpark that's being discussed" among governments, the UN's Richard Kinley told Reuters during a climate change conference in Montreal.

Kinley, acting head of the Bonn-based secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, also said he felt there was a new mood of concern about the climate after Kyoto entered into force in February 2005 despite a US pullout.

"The sands are shifting," he said. Kyoto is meant as a tiny first step to brake a warming that could cause more floods, storms, desertification and drive up world sea levels by almost a metre (yard) by 2100.

Supporters of Kyoto are planning to launch talks on extending Kyoto at Montreal after a first set of cuts in emissions, mainly of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, ends in 2012.

STRAITJACKET

Kyoto obliges about 40 industrial nations to cut emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001, branding Kyoto an economic straitjacket that wrongly excluded developing nations.

Washington has said it is not interested in joining any negotiations about extra commitments to combat global warming beyond 2012, preferring a path of big investments in new technologies without binding caps on emissions.

But Kinley said there would still be efforts at the UN talks to try to get the United States involved in discussing the future, as well as developing countries such as India and China which have no targets under Kyoto.

"That's the issue to watch," he said. "There's going to be a lot of talk, arm twisting and discussion."

Canada, which is hosting the conference, favors a twin-track process under which Kyoto backers start would discuss a successor pact while other countries, like the United States, start looking at new ways to fight global warming.

Kinley also said the conference, which runs until Dec. 9, was likely to reaffirm detailed rules for Kyoto, including penalties for noncompliance, on Wednesday despite calls by Saudi Arabia for a time-consuming amendment to the pact.

"I'm sure that a way will be found to deal with this," he said.

And he expressed confidence that the conference would help to streamline a UN scheme promoting investments in cleaner energies in developing nations, ranging from hydro-electric plants in South Africa to methane-burning schemes in Brazil.