Several college students from Maine will participate in a United Nations conference on curbing global warming.

One student each from Bowdoin, Bates and Colby colleges, and at least one student from the College of the Atlantic, were leaving Thursday on flights bound for the Netherlands.

Greenpeace was responsible for sending 200 students, including those from Maine, to the conference at The Hague, said Jill Williams, a sophomore majoring in political science and women’s studies at Bates.

“We’re really just trying to tell the delegates that global warming is an issue that students care about, and it’s time for the U.S. to take a leadership role on this issue,” she said Thursday before leaving.

The two-week climate conference seeks agreements on programs to cut emissions of greenhouse gases over the next 12 years.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries will reduce the total output of heat-trapping gases by an average 5.2 percent between 2008-2012 compared with 1990 levels. Most of the details on how that will be achieved were left undecided.

On Wednesday, a U.S. proposal to grant emissions credits for programs to expand or protect pollution-absorbing forests and crops received stiff opposition at the conference at The Hague.

The United States wants the credits for plants, soil and trees that absorb airborne carbon to count against the amount of greenhouse gases the country must reduce under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Delegates from the European Union said they would stand firm against the proposal.

The United States contributes one-quarter of global carbon dioxide emissions, with output jumping 11 percent in the past decade.

Government forecasts say the United States will need to reduce emissions by a third if they are to meet the Kyoto target.