As a new report is published calling for urgent international action on global warming, the United Nations has released new data showing that the rich countries have made little overall progress in reducing their production of the gases blamed for climate change.

The data, released by the UN Climate Change Secretariat, suggests that a 3% drop in emissions by industrialised countries between 1990 and 2004 was due to the economic chaos in eastern Europe after the collapse of Communism.

It says emission levels among other countries from the 40 monitored - such as the United States, Canada, Japan and some European nations - continued to rise and the upward trend was now being augmented by the revived economies of the former Soviet bloc.

A UN spokesman said it was still possible for those countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol on reducing emissions to meet their commitments, but they had to intensify their efforts, this news reported by BBC.