*Act on global warming, leaders urged*

 From correspondents in Paris

January 30, 2007 05:17am
Article from: Reuters

WORLD governments should take heed of the most wide-ranging scientific
assessment so far of a human link to global warming and reach agreement
on prompt action to slow the trend, the chairman of a UN climate report
said overnight.

A draft of the report, due for release on Saturday, projects a big rise
in temperatures this century and warns of more heatwaves, floods,
droughts and rising sea levels linked to greenhouse gases released
mainly by burning of fossil fuels.

"I hope policies and action will be formed to address the problem," the
chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
Rajendra Pachauri, told reporters.

"I think based on the awareness that is growing very rapidly in every
part of the globe, you will see a certain political resolve developing."

Governments and scientists today began a final review of the IPCC draft
that they are due to approve before its release on February 2.

The report draws on research by 2500 scientists from more than 130
countries and has taken six years to compile. It is unlikely there will
be major changes between the draft and the final conclusions, diplomatic
sources said.

Thirty-five industrial nations have signed up to the UN's Kyoto
Protocol, capping emissions of carbon dioxide.

The US pulled out in 2001, arguing Kyoto would cost jobs and wrongly
excluded developing nations from goals for 2012. Still, US President
George W. Bush said last week climate change was a "serious challenge".

The draft report said there is at least a 90 per cent probability human
activities are to blame for most of the warming in the past 50 years.
The previous report, in 2001, rated the probability at just 66 per cent.

The UN report, the fourth of its kind, is expected to foresee
temperatures rising by 2 to 4.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial
levels by 2100, with a "best estimate" of a rise of 3 degrees celsius.