Lending support to a demand from developing countries for extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union Tuesday favored the continuation of the global pact that is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"The Kyoto Protocol should be extended for some time, but I can't say what that sometime would be," EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik told a news conference. He didn't give any reason for the EU's proposal for continuing with the pact.

Potocnik's comments come ahead of the ministerial-level United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change scheduled for November in Durban . The Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012 with no new treaty in the near horizon.

Developing countries including India have demanded an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and are opposed to any legally binding emissions cut. An extension of the Kyoto Protocol will help fill the vacuum until a new agreement is in place.

Several rich countries aren't in favour of extending the pact until the U.S. and China agree to binding emission cuts. The U.S. and China , two of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, aren't signatories to the Kyoto Protocol.

Environment ministers of various countries met in Pretoria last month to prepare grounds of negotiations between developed and developing nations on issues such as legally binding caps on emissions, extension of the Kyoto Protocol and funding of green energy projects in developing countries--all aimed at reducing global warming.

Potocnik also said that discussions on climate change are unlikely to be affected by the current financial crisis in Europe .

"I don't see the prevailing crisis in Europe and elsewhere impacting the Durban talks," he said. "The global climate crisis is bigger than the financial crisis."

He said that the EU won't change its policy that mandates all flights by non-EU carriers to and from an airport in the territory of an EU member state to be in its emissions trading system.

"If you don't comply, you have to pay," he said.

India and 25 other nations including the U.S. and China are opposed to the EU's plan to include airlines in its system to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are willing to talk about it but there is no question of going backward," he said.

The potentially costly system of limiting emissions requires all airlines, from Jan. 1, 2012 , to hold permits that allow them to emit carbon dioxide during any flight landing at or taking off from an EU airport.

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