BRUSSELS, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- It is "very difficult" to achieve the Kyoto Protocol target that developed nations reduce green house gases by 5.2 percent by 2012 when the pact expires, a senior UN official said here on Thursday.

    "I think it will be very difficult to achieve this target," Yvode Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in an interview with Xinhua.

    De Boer said that Kyoto Protocol's actual target of reducing green house emissions is only four percent because the United States and Australia did not participate in the pact.

    The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at the UN climate change conference in Kyoto, Japan, on Dec. 11, 1997 and entered into force on Feb. 16, 2005.

    The UN official cited two reasons for possible failure of the target. "First because the United States and Australia do not participate in this, and secondly ...some European countries are seeing very strong economic growth and their emissions are going up,

    "We need to work very hard in order to achieve that target," said De Boer, who is attending a hearing on climate change in the European Parliament.