SIX OF the world's biggest polluters, led by the United States, will create a multi-million dollar fund to encourage mining and power industries to develop and use cleaner energy technologies to combat climate change.

The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate between the United States, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and India will also form eight working groups with business and industry to develop clean-energy projects for the fund.

Combined, the six countries account for half the world's greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil and their Sydney meeting is the first for their clean-energy partnership.

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that Australia and the United States would announce a financial contribution to get the fund started. South Korea, Japan, China and India would also commit support. "The private sector as well as governments are going to sit down together and try to work out solutions to some of these problems," said Downer. "As they work out some of these solutions then they will come back to governments with those recommendations and we will have to have a look and see what needs to be funded."

Green groups said the two-day talks in Sydney were a facade and were aimed at subverting the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States and Australia refuse to sign claiming its mandatory greenhouse gas cuts would threaten economic growth.

They said that without binding targets, which the Sydney climate pact will not propose, then it was doomed to fail.

About 80 executives from global mining and energy firms, including BHP Billiton, Exxon Mobil and Rio Tinto, attended the talks on Wednesday. "We will expect to challenge the private sector to do more... because this matter of greenhouse gas control is one that we all share," US energy secretary Sam Bodman told a joint news conference with Australian industry minister Ian Macfarlane.

The Sydney climate pact's eight clean-energy working groups will be based on the industry sectors of mining, renewable energy, aluminium, cement, distributed energy, power generation, building and appliance efficiency and transportation.

How algae can save the world The green single-celled plant could transform the world's energy needs and cut global warming -- at a profit The idea Dr Isaaz Berzin, a rocket scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came up with the idea of using algae to clean up exhaust three years ago. Algae absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust that passes through it. The exhaust when passed through algae has 40% less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and also 86% less nitrous oxide Multiple uses The algae is harvested daily, and a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out, which can be used as biodiesel for automobiles The dried green flakes that remain can be further reprocessed to create ethanol, also used for transportation Berzin's company, GreenFuel has garnered $11 million in venture capital funding and is conducting a field trial at a 1,000 MW power plant The plant The algae used must have a high oil density -- about 50% of its weight Because this kind of algae grows fast, it can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre Soybeans and corn, which are the major biodiesel crops today, produce just 60 gallons Berzin calculates that just one 1,000 MW power plant using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and 50 million gallons of ethanol a year The others Last month, Greenshift Corporation licensed CO2-gobbling algae technology that uses a screen-like algal filter, developed by David Bayless of Ohio University The filter is capable of handling 140 cubic meters of flue gas per minute, equal to exhaust from 50 cars or a 3 MW power plant, Greenshift said