Scientists livid at 'soft' draft

Brussels, Belgium: Agreement on the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came after an all-night session during which key sections were deleted from the draft and scientists angrily confronted government negotiators who they feared were watering down their findings.

Africa will be hardest hit. By 2020, up to 250 million people are likely to be exposed to water shortages. In some countries, food production could fall by half, it said.

North America will experience more severe storms with human and economic loss, and cultural and social disruptions. It can expect more hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires, it said.

Flooding and avalanches

Parts of Asia are threatened with massive flooding and avalanches from melting Himalayan glaciers. Europe also will see its Alpine glaciers disappear. Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose much of its coral to bleaching from even moderate increases in sea temperatures, the report said.

"It has been a complex exercise," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but in the end agreed to compromises. However, some scientists vowed never to take part in the process again.

The climax of five days of negotiations was reached when the delegates removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees, and in a tussle over the level of scientific reliability attached to key statements.

There was little doubt about the science, which was based on 29,000 sets of data, much of it collected in the past five years. "For the first time we are not just arm-waving with models," Martin Perry, who conducted the gruelling negotiations, told reporters.

The final IPCC report is the clearest and most comprehensive scientific statement to date on the impact of global warming mainly caused by man-induced carbon dioxide pollution.

"The poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit," said Pachauri. "People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change." The report said up to 30 percent of the Earth's species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average in the 1980s and 1990s.

Areas that now suffer a shortage of rain will become even drier, adding to the risks of hunger and disease, it said.

The world will face heightened threats of flooding, severe storms and the erosion of coastlines. "This is a glimpse into an apocalyptic future," the Greenpeace environmental group said of the final report.

Without taking action to curb carbon emissions, man's livable habitat will shrink starkly, said Stanford scientist Stephen Schneider, one of the authors.