KYOTO, DEC 10; Haggling over chemistry, calendars and the future of earth's atmosphere, European and US negotiators neared final agreement today on a historic deal to control fuel emissions across the industrial world.

But negotiators still were working on knotty final details relating to US proposals the Europeans described as ``loopholes'', and US demands for stronger compliance measures. The US delegation to the 10-day-old global warming talks helped clear the way to an accord by offering deeper gas reductions.

The talks also got a boost from late-night calls made yesterday by Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to European leaders, urging greater flexibility.

``I think we are making genuine progress,'' Britain's Environment Minister Michael Meacher said after key talks early today. ``I think we have reason to be optimistic,'' US Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-conn., an observer at the talks, said later in the day.

If the last-minute differences between the US and Europe are settled, an overall deal will be presented to the 150-nation conference late tonight for consensus approval. The accord would wrap up two years of negotiations to strengthen the 1992 climate change treaty by setting legally binding limits on 34 industrial nations' emissions of such greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide and methane.

It could help set the energy course for much of the world well into the 21st century, from how we generate electricity to what we drive. Governments are expected to take steps such as converting coal-fired power plants to gas, encouraging development of more fuel-efficient automobiles and lifting subsidies that keep fossil fuel prices low.

The treaty had set only voluntary goals for industrial nations to roll back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Because few countries were meeting that goal, governments decided in 1995 to negotiate mandatory cutbacks.

The gases, mostly byproducts of fossil fuel burning, trap the earth's heat when they accumulate in the atmosphere.

An authoritative UN scientific assessment in 1995 found global temperatures rose slightly in the last century, apparently in part due to human activities, and would rise up to 6 degrees more by 2100 if emissions were not controlled.

Such warming would shift climate zones, disturb weather patterns and raise sea levels -- because of melted glaciers and heat expansion of the oceans flooding islands and low-lying coastlines.

Clinton has proposed that 1990 levels be retained as the binding goal, to be achieved between 2008 and 2012. The European Union proposed a more ambitious plan: cutting emissions by 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010.

The Trans-Atlantic argument over targets and timetables dominated the conference.

The United States contended its ``zero'' plan actually amounted to a 30 per cent reduction from what US emissions would be in 2010 if no controls were imposed. The Europeans objected that as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide -- 24 pc of the global total -- America needed to do more.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.