MELBOURNE, Australia (AP):

Finance chiefs from 20 of the world's most powerful economies added climate change to their list of issues at an annual gathering that ended yesterday, expressing concern about the problem but conceding there is division on how to deal with it.

Bringing global warming - long considered by some to be an environmental rather than economic problem - into the discussions of finance ministers and central bankers from Latin America, Europe and Asia in the Group of 20 forum, reflects growing public concern about the issue.

The cause is being helped by high-profile activists such as former United States Vice-President Al Gore, who is visiting Australia to promote his movie about the topic.

Gore yesterday said public pressure was helping change the policies of the United States and Australia, two holdouts on ratifying the Kyoto international agreement on climate change.

Climate change was not officially on the agenda for the G-20 meeting, but lobbying by senior British government economist Nicholas Stern helped push the topic onto the meeting's radar.

Outside the closed-door sessions, officials said some nations expressed support for raising the cost of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels to spur incentives for the development of alternative energy sources.

But many developing nations feared the added cost could eat into their economic growth.