By Jeremy Lovell
London - The world faces a surge in extreme weather events because of global warming and governments must act immediately to avert disaster, Britain's chief scientist said on Tuesday.
"Already we are witnessing increased storms at sea and floods in our cities," David King said. "Global warming will increase the level and frequency at which we experience heightened weather patterns.
"Action is affordable. Inaction is not," he told the third Greenpeace Business Lecture in central London.
| 'I think it is part of the El Nino effect' |
King said levels of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, were rising steadily due primarily to the burning of fossil fuels at an unprecedented rate.
His comments came a day after scientists at Britain's Hadley Centre said CO2 levels in the atmosphere had risen above the trend rate in the past two years, prompting fears that catastrophic climate change could be out of control.
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However, although the CO2 spike had been registered across the world, King cautioned it was too early to tell if it was an anomaly or if climate change had entered a new, explosive phase.
"Wait for another five to 10 years to see if this is significant. Personally I think it is part of the El Nino effect," King said. "But I can say this increase is taking us up into relatively dangerous levels of CO2 for our planet.
He said in just 100 years CO2 in the atmosphere had climbed from 260 parts per million to 380 and was rising at a rate of two ppm a year, taking mankind into uncharted territory.
"Whatever we do now - even if we stop emitting today - we are tied into climate change for the next 30-40 years," he said. "It is the longer term over which we can have influence today."
Environment pressure group Greenpeace said King had sounded an alarm that should not go unnoticed.
"All political and business leaders now have a moral duty to respond to what is clearly an emergency," Greenpeace's executive Stephen Tindale said.
The Kyoto treaty on cutting CO2 emissions by 5,2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 is expected to come into force within months with crucial Russian backing after the United States refusal to endorse the treaty in 2001 led to years of delays.
But scientists are divided on the treaty's efficacy and environmentalists say it is far too little, too late.
King insisted he was optimistic.
"We now understand what is happening and therefore what we must do to address this - global action to reduce carbon emissions is the key," he said.
"Kyoto is not enough. Kyoto is a beginning and it is a good process. Then we will have to start ratcheting it up and bring Australia and the United States on board."
It was not just cars and the boom in air travel that were the culprits. Power stations and factories are pumping out greenhouse gases, and coal and wood remain the main sources of heat and light across large parts of the globe.
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