Nations are struggling at a U.N. climate change conference to find better ways to get cheap, easy-to-use green technology into the hands of the developing world - while balancing the demands of companies for profits.

Poorer countries accuse the rich of pressuring them to control emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, while refusing to provide them with technology needed to do so without hurting their economies.

Often, the wealthy use the developing world to unload outdated, polluting machinery, critics say. When developing nations do get projects, the technology is often prohibitively expensive, inappropriate to the country's needs, or controlled by the foreigners providing it.

"We know the challenges are there, but we cannot respond to the challenges because we don't have the capacity," said Maria Mutagamba, Uganda's environment minister, adding that the country is "on the receiving end of technology that we cannot understand."

Wealthy countries, meanwhile, argue companies - since most technology is in private hands - need protection for intellectual property rights, assurances they will have the opportunity to profit from their investments, and better regulation and laws in host nations.

Industrialized countries deny they are unfairly withholding vital know-how from poorer nations.

"Let there be no doubt - America is engaged in the transfer and receipt of technologies on a massive scale," Jim Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told reporters.

The battle over technology transfer is key issue in the international effort to rein in heat-trapping gases.

The United States has been the top greenhouse gas emitter, but some say it has already been eclipsed by rapidly growing China, a country that relies heavily on outdated and dirty coal-burning technology. India's burgeoning economy is also a growing environmental worry.

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