Next three decades crucial to fight global warming: UN experts

Agence France-Presse

Efforts to stabilise the level of greenhouse gases over the next 20 to 30 years will be crucial in the fight against global warming, the UN's leading authority said in a report approved on Friday.

"Mitigation efforts over the next two to three decades will have a large impact on opportunities to achieve lower stabilisation levels" of greenhouse gases, the report said.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also said there was "substantial" potential for the world to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions to below current levels.

Greenhouse gases fuel global warming by trapping heat from the sun.

"There is substantial economic potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels," said the report.

The report is set to be formally launched at a press conference at 0600 GMT, and was agreed after five days of intense debate and marathon talks by scientists and other leading climate experts at a crucial UN conference in Bangkok.