"We have essentially a commitment in principle to continue the multilateral funding ... We have agreement on the timeline," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

However nations "like China and a few others clearly face major transformation costs and this is what we're trying to deal with in this agreement," Steiner said.

The current calendar calls for developed countries to stop using anti-ozone compounds found in many refrigerators, fire retardants and hairspray by 2030, and for developing nations to follow suit by 2040.

But the United States and the European Union, backed by UNEP, want to see 10 years trimmed off that timetable after discovering that patching up the ozone layer will also help tackle global warming.

Delegates of 190 countries, including more than 70 environment ministers, are meeting in Montreal this week to mark the 20th anniversary of the first treaty to protect Earth's stratospheric shield and to hammer out a new agenda.

China is expected to demand a big cash payout from a two-billion-dollar fund recently set up by developing countries to offset its implementation, said delegates.

"There is some hope we might be able to get a decision this week," Claudia McMurray, US assistant secretary for oceans, environment and science, told AFP.

She was echoed by conference host and Canada's Environment Minister John Baird, who told reporters: "The climate here is very good."

"We've got good vibes from Europe, the leadership of the United States has been tremendously important and ... I would like to acknowledge (China's) contribution thus far," Baird said.

However, while China "is willing to make a transition toward better chemicals, they need some financial support from our multilateral fund to ease the transition," explained McMurray.

And China has not yet disclosed its price, she said. "I think there's pretty broad support generally, but I think it's really going to come down to the financial part of it."

Optimistically, Baird added: "The engagement of the developing countries has been very good."

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in September 1987, was designed to heal the gaping hole in the blanket of oxygen molecules that protects animal and plant life from the Sun's dangerous ultraviolet rays.

The atmospheric wound, which last year was estimated to span a record 29.5 million square kilometers (10.81 million square miles) over and beyond the Antarctic, is believed to be caused by slowly degrading pollutants in the air.

Ninety-five percent of targets for CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) elimination by 2010 have already been met.

But some 88,000 tons of ozone-depleting substances are still produced every year, 85 percent of them in the industrialized world. And experts estimate that an additional 10,000 to 15,000 tons are produced illegally.

By damaging the ozone filter, the gases also have a "greenhouse effect," contributing to warming up the Earth's surface.

An official in UNEP's technical division, Sylvie Lemmet, said an accelerated ban on ozone-depleting compounds could amount to the equivalent of a cut in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 35 billion tons.

That is 15 times greater than the CO2 reductions targeted by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol -- the troubled global treaty for reducing greenhouse gases -- between 2008 and 2012.

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