Australia`s Rudd hands Kyoto papers to U.N. in Bali

Kyoto binds 36 industrialised nations to curb emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

Developing nations are exempt from targets under the pact's first phase and over the past 10 years emissions from nations such as India and China have soared.

Kyoto nations now comprise only about a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions pumped into the atmosphere, mostly from burning fossil fuels.

Australia negotiated hard at Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 for the most generous deal given to any major industrialised nation, winning an increase of 8 percent above 1990 emission levels.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change last month said Australia's greenhouse emissions in 2005 were about 25.6 per cent above 1990 levels, falling to a rise of 4.5 per cent when counting the impact of land-clearing bans.

That put the country on track to meet its Kyoto target.