Thousands of protesters rally outside international climate conference

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Thousands of demonstrators beat bongo drums and built a mock dike Saturday to symbolize threatened flooding from global warming, demanding real action at an international meeting on greenhouse gas emissions.

''Stop Climate Change!'' ''Stop the Oil Giants!'' ''Not Everybody Can Swim,'' read banners draped over a 400-yard-long barrier across the street from the U.N. Climate Conference.

The crowd of protesters from around the world roared when conference chairman Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister, added a few sandbags to the shoulder-high barrier.

''We cannot build a dike with words alone,'' Pronk told the demonstrators after scaling 15 feet of scaffolding to reach the stage.

''We need to build it with action that is based on words which are agreed upon,'' he added, referring to the accord expected at the conclusion of the two-week conference, which began Monday.

The protest was largely nonviolent, though noisy, with music blaring from outdoor concert speakers.

However, police spokesman Rob Kouwenhoven said nine demonstrators were arrested for allegedly throwing paint bombs against the Municipal Museum next door.

Inside the conference hall, delegates from some 180 countries were haggling over draft texts of emissions ceilings, pollution trading schemes and other inventive proposals aimed at meeting the compulsory targets set in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Under the protocol, worldwide emissions of carbon-based gases must drop to 5.2 percent below the 1990 levels. Europe must cut 8 percent, Japan 6 percent, the United States 7 percent.

The mock dike highlighted the vulnerability of low-lying nations to rising sea levels that scientists predict could result from thawing polar ice caps if the Earth's average temperature rises. Nearly half of the Netherlands is below sea level, protected by dikes and sand dunes erected over the centuries by Dutch farmers.

''Climate change is already happening. The water is rising,'' said Jana Rizmanova, a college student from Slovakia, as she passed sandbags down a line of activists.

''A lot of leaders of a lot of countries are trying to duck their responsibilities and find ways to make it appear as if they are taking real action,'' added Frank Pennycook of Britain, who wore a fish costume as he worked on the dike.

Environment ministers from 150 countries are due Monday to begin discussing proposals prepared in the first week by some 2,000 delegates.

Pronk had given the delegates until Saturday to finish their work and provide him with drafts he could pass on to the ministers.

However, conference spokesman Michael Williams said no agreement was expected yet on the most controversial issues.

Those include the emissions caps as well as penalties for noncompliance, proposals for an international market in pollution quotas and allowing countries credit for trees and flora designated for carbon-dioxide absorption.

''The problem is everything is interlinked. You can't have a decision on one thing and not another,'' Williams said. ''I expect it will all come together at once later in the week.''

The European Union and environmental groups have harshly rejected a U.S. plan to cut levels of greenhouse gases. The plan suggests using so-called carbon ''sinks'' - forests and lands that absorb carbon dioxide pollution - to help meet targets of carbon dioxide reduction.