Scientists from nine countries in the International Climate Change Taskforce appealed for change of heart particularly from the United States and major developing countries.

Governments must take action to restrict global warming-induced temperature rise to two degrees since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to avoid widespread drought, crop failure and water shortages, they warned in a report.

The global average temperature has already risen by 0.8 degrees since 1750, so the world has little more than a single degree of temperature latitude before the crucial point is reached, the report said.

A rise above two degrees would trigger such effects as ice melting in Greenland or drought bringing natural, economic, social and political disasters in their wake.

The point of no-return could be reached in 10 years unless concerted action was taken by all countries, the report warned.

Man-made global warming is caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and gas in power stations and motor vehicles which began with the Industrial Revolution in 1750.

The group, co-chaired by Britain's former transport minister Stephen Byers and US Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, produced 10 recommendations foreseeing energy savings, development of renewable energy resources, restructuring agriculture and the setting-up of new coordinating structures between states.

The experts stressed the role that could be played by the Group of Eight (G8), comprising the world's seven leading industrial countries plus Russia.

The report urged all G8 countries to agree to generate a quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and to double research spending on low-carbon energy technologies by 2010.

They also proposed the adoption of a framework that would allow the United States to join global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Washington has refused to sign the existing international agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The taskforce's report has been timed to coincide with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's promised efforts to advance climate change policy this year as it takes the head of both the G8 and the European Union.

Presenting the report, Byers said there was growing awareness in Washington of climate issues, although President George W. Bush "remains very close to the petrol industry."

Nothing would be achieved, the experts agreed, without cooperation between rich and poor countries.

The British economist and taskforce member Adair Turner said: "The developing world says the developed world must act first: it emits more, it is richer, it has a certain historic responsibility."

Meanwhile the United States, "pushed by some of the more irreponsible segments of the business community," says it will sign nothing until China and India also agree to sign up to climate accords, Turner noted.

"This is the classic problem of a negotiation on disarmament," the British official remarked. Everybody wanted everybody else to go first.

The present negotiation phase was on "carbon dioxide emissions disarmament."

The expert report urged rich countries to make development aid to poor countries conditional on respect for ecological norms.

Britain has made the struggle against climate change and Africa's plight two priorities of its stewardship of the G8 this year.

Blair was set Wednesday to make an address to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos on the theme of climate change.

The taskforce's report was compiled by three leading think tanks, the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Centre for American Progress in the United States and The Australia Institute.

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