UN panel says major steps required to combat climate change

In order to ward off catastrophic effects of climate change, countries need to make drastic changes in the way they consume energy, a UN science panel has warned.

According to Politico, the only options that stand a chance of heading off the worst of the harm would require cutting at least slightly into economic growth in the coming decades, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.

While the 37-page summary report does not detail the costs involved in bringing about the changes, it warns that time is running out and half-measures can not be seen as a permanent solution.

Germany's Ottmar Edenhofer, one of the three co-chairs of the report, said in a statement that there is a clear message from science, which is to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system and move away from business as usual.

But the panel warned that only major institutional and technological changes have a chance of limiting the rise in global average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels - the target that scientists say could limit the most dramatic effects of climate change, the report added.