Leading scientists at a global climate change conference have issued a direct and unprecedented plea to the world's politicians, saying weak 2020 targets for greenhouse gas cuts such as those proposed by the Rudd Government would let the world slip into catastrophe.
The message was stark: climate change is real, it is happening faster than thought even a couple of years ago, and the effects are likely to be severe if political leaders do not act decisively and soon.
"There is no excuse for inaction," said the strongly worded communique signed in Copenhagen yesterday by more than 2000 researchers from 80 countries, including leading climate scientists from the University of NSW and the Australian National University.
They called on political leaders to reduce "the influence of vested interests" - which, they claimed, hampered efforts to cut carbon emissions.
Politicians were warned that there were only a few years left in which to start making deep cuts.
"Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of crossing tipping points and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult," they said.
The Federal Government plans to make the slow start to emissions cuts that the scientists warned against.
It will reduce emissions by 5pc on 2000 levels by 2020, or up to 15pc if other nations also agree to make higher cuts.
This still falls short of the 25-40pc cuts recommended by the climate summit.
Curbing emissions would bring "societal transformation", it said, and this would require a shift from "ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society".
Delegates agreed that most indicators of climate change appeared to show it was happening faster than predicted in the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in 2007.
They said the "worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived."
That observation was based on hundreds of independent reports delivered at the conference, hosted at the University of Copenhagen.
They painted an alarming picture of rising seas eating into cities, productive land and rainforests turning to desert, and a real possibility of war and social breakdowns within a few decades as shortages widened social divides.
Grim predictions apart, the summit also focused on solutions to avert the worst effects of climate change.
"We already have many tools and approaches - economic, technological, behavioural, management - to deal effectively with the climate change challenge," the scientists said.
"A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to alter our energy economy now, including sustainable energy job growth, reductions in the health and economic costs of climate change, and the restoration of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services."
Prince Charles has also called for action. "The best projections tell us that we have less than 100 months to alter our behaviour before we risk catastrophic climate change," he told an audience in Rio de Janeiro.
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