(Recasts with de Boer briefing, interview)

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Economic revival in the former Soviet bloc has been the main driver in pushing up industrialised nations' greenhouse gas emissions since 2000, despite plans to cut them, U.N. data showed on Monday.

"Emissions trends...continue to be a cause of concern," Yvo de Boer, head of the Climate Change Secretariat, told a news conference in Bonn that was also broadcast on the Internet. "Since 2000 they have been clearly on the rise."

Emissions by 40 industrialised nations grew by 2.3 percent to the equivalent of 18.0 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2006 from 17.6 billion in 2000, the Secretariat said in an annual compilation of data that underpins U.N. climate treaties.

Biggest gains since 2000 were by nations of the former Soviet bloc, where emissions rose 7.4 percent to 3.7 billion tonnes in line with an economic upturn, after tumbling with the collapse of smokestack industries in the early 1990s.

Overall emissions by other industrialised countries were up by 1 percent since 2000, with transport the worst performing sector.

The Secretariat played down a 0.1 percent dip in emissions in 2006 from 2005, saying the trend still seemed up. The fall might be linked to factors such as high oil prices, or a mild winter in Europe and North America that cut demand for heating.

"I'd call an 80 percent reduction in emissions a breakthrough to celebrate, not 0.1 percent," de Boer told Reuters by telephone.

De Boer said the rising trend showed the need for the world's environment ministers to make progress on a new U.N. climate treaty, due to be agreed by the end of next year, at talks in Poznan, Poland, from Dec. 1 to 12.

HEATWAVES

The U.N. Climate Panel says global emissions should peak by 2015, and then fall, to avoid the worst of climate change that could bring water and food shortages by causing floods, heatwaves and more powerful storms.

De Boer said that a 2008 economic slowdown was likely to curb rich nations' emissions, and so make it easier to meet 2012 targets for cuts under the current Kyoto Protocol.

But he said economic contraction was not the right way to shift from use of fossil fuels. "I hope never to be in a situation where we say 'we made the Kyoto targets but everybody's starving'."

He also said U.S. President-elect Barack Obama would not attend the Poznan talks despite past hopes of a visit. "There is one president at a time," he said. Many countries are pinning hopes on Obama for tougher action than President George W. Bush.

Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 -- far tougher than Bush, who foresees U.S. emissions peaking in 2025. Obama plans investments in a clean energy economy of up to $150 billion over 10 years.

Monday's data covers industrialised nations -- developing nations such as China and India have no obligations to report.

Despite the rising trend since 2000, emissions were down 4.7 percent from 1990 levels of 18.9 billion tonnes, caused mainly by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Kyoto calls for average cuts of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

De Boer said that goal still seemed within reach, for Kyoto nations as a group, even though many are struggling.

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-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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