Monterrey, Mexico: The world's top polluting nations were told yesterday to prepare for decades of weather turmoil, even if they act now to curb emissions and pursue green energy sources.
Environment and energy ministers meeting in the Mexican city of Monterrey vowed to work faster to control global warming as scientists told them each year wasted in curbing greenhouse gas emissions would cost them dearly.
The informal talks did not set emissions-cutting targets, but delegates agreed on the need to expand the global carbon trading market to provide investment for green initiatives.
British Environment Secretary David Miliband said scientists told the meeting that if no action is taken, carbon dioxide emissions will more than double by 2050. "The meeting has dramatised the need for comprehensive global action. The message about the need for early action is very strong," he said.
Yet even if countries froze emission levels tomorrow, the world still faces 30 years of floods, heatwaves, hurricanes and coastal erosion, the British government's chief scientific advisor, David King, said.
King, who considers global warming a bigger threat than terrorism, said rich nations must help the developing world prepare for a weather shift that could put millions of lives at risk.
"We've got 30 years of climate change ahead of us even if we stop right now. We're persuading countries they have to adapt to the changes that are ahead of them," King said.
"Because we've raised the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere so quickly, the earth's climate system is falling behind. This is way in excess of anything the planet has known, probably for 45 million years," he said.
Among countries who sent ministers to Monterrey were China and India, whose ballooning demand for energy has made them some of the worst polluters after the United States, which pumps out a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases.
