Vienna - More than a thousand people from government, industry and research institutions opened a week-long meeting in Vienna Monday as part of a United Nations initiative to discuss how to fight climate change.
"Climate change is a huge challenge that can only be tackled at a global level and in an integrated manner," Josef Proell, Austrian environment minister, said in opening the conference, according to a UN statement.
"We do not have much time to create adequate framework conditions. Each year without mitigation measures is a year which drives the human and financial cost of adaptation steeply upwards," Proell said.
The Greenpeace environmental group warned in a statement that "the world is watching and expects serious progress on climate protection" on the UN talks which come ahead of the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol.
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"Greenpeace demands clear progress towards strengthening the Kyoto Protocol for its second phase which begins in 2013," said Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephanie Tunmore.
"These small meetings often fly under the radar, but 2007 is such a crucial year for climate negotiations that everyone must take notice," Tunmore said.
"This meeting will give an indication on whether the political community is willing to go beyond well-intentioned platitudes," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), had told journalists on Sunday.
He said the scientific community had already indicated the catastrophic consequences if the world did not act quickly.
The UNFCCC has published three scientific reports on climate change. One says climate change is real and caused by humans; a second lays out the consequences if no action is taken; the third says technologies and solutions exist to address the problem.
De Boer is also due to present a new report analysing how financial investments can make contributions to climate change.
"This analysis is significant because traditional investment needs to be redirected to more climate-friendly and climate-proof alternatives," he said.
This week's meeting will also allow preparations for high-level climate talks at the United Nations in New York next month, they said.
The UNFCCC will hold a conference with its 191 member states in Bali in December to discuss climate commitments for the period following 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
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