UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24: UN chief Ban Ki-moon, opening a landmark summit on climate change, warned world leaders on Monday they face condemnation by future generations if they fail to tackle greenhouse-gas pollution.

“Climate change, and what we do about it, will define us, our era, and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations,” the secretary general said.

He demanded a breakthrough at a key conference taking place in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

“The time for doubt has passed,” said Ban, as he noted the grim 4th assessment on climate change by the United Nations’ top scientific panel this year.

“If we do not act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating,” he added. “We have affordable measures and technologies to begin addressing the problem right now. What we do not have is time.”

The exceptional one-day summit entitled “The Future in Our Hands:

Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change,” gathered around 150 nations, some 80 of them at the level of head of state or government.

It aimed to break the deadlock in efforts to deepen cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat from the sun and are inflicting damaging change to Earth’s climate system.

Ban said that, if as scientists have indicated, global emissions are to peak within the next 10 to 15 years to keep warming to a tolerable level, “all sectors will need to be engaged,” at the political level, by business, technology and finance.He said the Dec 3 to 14 UN conference on global warming in Bali, Indonesia, has to set the stage for a comprehensive agreement for deepening and accelerating action from 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out.

“Our goal must be nothing short of a real breakthrough in Bali,” he declared.

Industrialised countries should show “enhanced leadership” on reducing their own emissions, and developing countries should have incentives to tackle their own pollution, “but without sacrificing economic growth or poverty reduction,” said Ban.

The chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, gave a brief summary of the 4th assessment report.

Glaciers and Arctic sea ice were retreating rapidly and “major precipitation changes” — droughts and floods — were occurring.

On present trends, hundreds of millions of people faced worsening water scarcity as a result of glacier loss in the Himalayas, which fed key rivers in China and South Asia. Water scarcity would affect the growing of key crops.

“Climate change is accelerating,” he said.

Tackling the problem swiftly though would keep the bill to a manageable level, but the cost will rise in line with the global temperature, he said.

To keep within range of the 2.0 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) goal would cost less than three percent of the gross domestic product by 2030, he said.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, the world’s seventh largest economy, spelled out the possibilities for tackling greenhouse gases at the local level and with the help of business.

In California, “something remarkable is beginning to stir — something revolutionary, something historic and transformative,” he said.

Schwarzenegger pointed to the state’s actions on emissions and low-carbon fuel standards, and the actions of its famously dynamic entrepreneurs who were seizing the opportunity to make money from the carbon cleanup.

“Last year alone, California received more than $1.1 billion in clean tech investment,” said Schwarzenegger. “This amount is expected to grow 20 to 30 per cent a year for a decade.” Ban was later to present a summary of conclusions, following this with a dinner gathering representatives from the world’s biggest carbon polluters.

On Thursday and Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host a meeting in Washington of the world’s 16 biggest polluters, plus representatives the European Union and the United Nations.—AFP