Climate change is "severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action" can
head it off, a United Nations scientific
panel said in a report on global warming issued Saturday.
Exposed mud banks at a reservoir in Spain, November 2007.
The report produced by the Nobel prize-winning panel warns of the devastating impact for developing countries and the threat of species extinction posed by the
Climate crisis.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, presenting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in Valencia, Spain, warned that some of the effects of rising levels of
greenhouse gases may already be irreversible.
The U.N. head said the situation was already "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action" could head off the crisis.
The report warns that in spite of the protocols adopted by many Western countries after Kyoto, greenhouse gas
emissions will continue to rise by between 25 and 90 per cent by 2030.
The Kyoto treaty was a global effort to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The United States is one of only a few nations not to have signed the protocol, which expires in 2012.
The report also predicts a rise in global warming of around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.
Scientists say up to an 85 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions is needed to head off potential catastrophic changes that could lead to more floods and famine.
Ban Ki-moon told the panel he was hopeful that the report''s findings could help bring about "a real breakthrough" in climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia, next month.
The climate change panel was delivering its fourth and final report on the science of climate change and the impact of human-produced greenhouse gases at a conference in Valencia.
More abstracts about the U.N. report: Urgent action needed on ''severe'' climate change