By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO, May 18 (Reuters) - Industrial nations in the Kyoto Protocol want deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012 despite uncertainty over whether outsiders will join the U.N. pact, the head of a U.N. group said on Friday.

Leon Charles, heading a group of government experts from Kyoto countries, also said that 166-nation talks in Bonn reaffirmed there should be a seamless transition from a first period of Kyoto ending in 2012 and new rules from 2013.

"There is a general awareness that we must 'mind the gap'," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Bonn. Carbon markets and industrial investors wanted to know about new rules beyond 2013 as early as possible, he said.

The Kyoto group at the May 7-18 talks agreed on a need for urgency in agreeing deeper cuts in world emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

To avoid the worst impacts, emissions "will have to peak within 10 to 15 years and be reduced by upwards of 40 percent," he said.

Kyoto binds 35 rich nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 but the United States, which views Kyoto as a threat to jobs and too narrowly based, and developing countries led by China and India have no 2012 goals.

DIALOGUE

Kyoto countries account for only about a third of world greenhouse gas emissions and are legally bound to discuss extending the pact. All countries are separately involved in a non-binding "dialogue" about ways to combat warming.

Kyoto backers want to merge the Kyoto talks with the broader dialogue at a meeting of environment ministers in Bali, Indonesia, in December and launch global talks on a broader-based pact to fight warming beyond 2012.

"It is still a little premature to say how that might happen," he said. "I think there will be a question of how do we converge them together."

Kyoto has been ratified by more than 150 nations, including developing nations with no 2012 targets. Charles' group is looking at commitments by rich countries, who are expected to take the lead as the main historical source of emissions.

Many have expressed gloom about the outlook, despite rising public concern about warming that could trigger more heat waves, droughts, floods, erosion, spread disease and raise sea levels.

Charles said reports this year by the U.N. climate panel panel, drawing on the work of 2,500 scientists and squarely blaming mankind for global warming, should help spur negotiators.

"One of the constraints in Kyoto was the lack of data," he said. When Kyoto negotiations began in 1995 scientists put the probability that humans were warming the globe at just over 50 percent -- in this year they put it at more than 90 percent."

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