Gordon Brown Warns of Climate "Catastrophe"

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on Monday to warn representatives of the world's biggest carbon polluters of a climate catastrophe if they do not strike a deal at the Copenhagen summit.

Photo: Gordon Brown Warns of Climate "Catastrophe"

Gordon Brown Warns of Climate

He was expected to press representatives at the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in London to find way to "break the impasse" on getting a far-reaching agreement at the United Nations climate conference in December.

The 17 powers that make up the MEF, along with developing nations and UN representatives, are trying to iron out some of their differences before the crunch summit in Denmark.

"In every era there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history -- because they change the course of history," Brown was to say, AFP reports.

"For the planet, there is no Plan B," Brown will say. "I urge my fellow leaders to work together to reach agreement among us, recognizing both our common and our differentiated responsibilities -- and the dire consequences of failure."

Current policies to fight climate change in China, India, the U.S. and other major carbon-dioxide emitters aren’t enough to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), U.S. envoy Todd Stern told reporters in London yesterday.

"There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years," Brown will say. "So as we convene here, we carry great responsibilities, and the world is watching," Bloomberg reports.

Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary yesterday highlighted signs of movement pointing out that last month India said it was ready to set itself non-binding targets for cutting carbon emissions, while China said it would curb the growth of its emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020, although it did not specify further.

The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, said developing economies must boost their efforts to curb emissions, warning it was "certainly possible" that no deal would be agreed in Copenhagen.

"What we need to have happen is for China and India and Brazil and South Africa and others to be willing to take what they're doing, boost it up some, and then be willing to put it into an international agreement," he said, according to Guardian.co.uk.