Britain wants tighter limits on greenhouse gases by Europe and other rich countries as a first step toward establishing a global carbon trading system to help reduce the cost of climate change.
The main argument of a British report which was due to be published yesterday is that the benefits of determined worldwide steps to tackle global warming will massively outweigh the costs.
But the report's author, former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, concludes that ignoring climate change could lead to economic upheaval on the scale of the 1930s depression.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair described the findings as "a wakeup call to every country in the world."
"The report is clear: We are heading towards catastrophic tipping points in our climate unless we act," Blair wrote in an article for the Sun newspaper.
"Creating cleaner energy whilst using less has to be the key," he wrote.
Finance minister Gordon Brown was to argue at the launch of the report that harnessing the power of markets is the best way to find new methods to curb the output of polluting gases, Treasury officials said.
Sharing a platform with Blair and Stern, Brown would propose a new EU-wide target for emissions reductions of 30 percent by 2020 and 60 percent by 2050 and expansion of the carbon trading scheme to cover more than 50 percent of emissions.
"Stern's report sees climate change as a global challenge that demands a global solution. The truth is we must tackle climate change internationally or we will not tackle it at all," Brown was expected to say.
Brown wants the EU scheme -- which sets overall limits for carbon emissions but then allows businesses to trade their quotas -- to be linked with Australia, California, Japan, Norway and Switzerland with a view to setting a global price for carbon that fixes a clear cost for pollution.
If emissions continue to grow, our planet could warm up by several more degrees, with severe consequences.
Poor countries would be hit most as melting glaciers initially increase flood risk and then reduce water supplies -- eventually threatening one-sixth of the world's population.
The 700-page report focuses on the economic, and not the environmental, consequences of global warming, and is said to conclude that inaction could cost the world up to ?3.68 trillion (US$6.98 trillion).
Combatting climate change, the report says, will cost about one percent of global gross domestic product -- equivalent to about ?184 billion.
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