Argentina will be the first to sign an agreement to put the Protocol of Kyoto into effect in aceremony scheduled for Wednesday in Japan, said the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

Argentina's Health and the Environment Minister Gines Gonzalez,who presided over the 10th United Nations Conference on Climate Change held in December in Buenos Aires, will be the first official to sign the document, it said.

In the ceremony, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, Britain, Italyand France will sign the agreement to reduce their gas emissions between 2008 and 2012 by 5 percent below the level of 1990.

The pact, negotiated in Japan's capital of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations, pushes 35 industrialized countries to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and five other gases which lead to global warming.

Experts say greenhouse-effect gases increased the global temperature, leading to the melting of glaciers, intensifying rains and raising the sea-level.

The implementation of the Protocol of Kyoto comes 90 days afterRussia ratified the document, which requires countries accounting for 55 percent of the world's emissions to ratify it.

The Kyoto pact's impact, however, will be limited by the absence of the United States, the largest producer of gas emissions. Washington signed the protocol in 1997, but the US Senate refused to ratify it, saying the emission-control poses potential damage to the US economy.