Finance officials from some 40 countries held talks in Bali today on ways to tackle the accelerating global warming issue.

The talks, which were held on the sideline of a two-week UN climate change conference in Bai, a resort island of Indonesia, will prepare for talks by about 20 finance ministers tomorrow, according to Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

He termed having the finance ministers meeting as a "breakthrough."

"The role of the finance ministers is to lead this discussion so that we have wider policy options," Indrawati said, referring to taxes or incentives for green technologies such as wind, solar power or "clean coal."

This is the first time to hold a finance ministers meeting on the sideline of the annual the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's meeting.

Also, a two-day trade ministers meeting was held in Bali during the weekend. Both meetings aim to focus on contributing to efforts in addressing climate change.

However, the trade ministers meeting failed to ease splits between Brazil and the United States over green exports.

The UN climate change conference was attended by over 10,000 delegates from over 180 countries, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.

The conference, due to end on Dec. 14, is tasked with drawing up a "roadmap" for negotiations on a new climate deal before the current phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The Protocol requires 36 industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below levels specified for each of them. Overall, this should amount to reductions of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.