"Greenpeace started to build a Noah's Ark on the Mount Ararat to point to the threat of the new climate catastrophe," Andree Bohling, the group's energy campaigner, told a press conference here.

"Global climate change is the biggest threat to our planet since the times of Noah," he added. "We are about to face a new flood."

The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament says God decided to flood the earth after seeing how corrupt it had become, and told Noah, an honourable man, to build an ark and fill it with two of every species.

It goes on to say that after the flood waters receded, the ark came to rest on a mountain in what is now eastern Turkey and many believe Mount Ararat, the highest in the region and in Turkey, is the ark's final resting place.

"The heating up of the earth has already caused an increase in droughts, storms and floods and is destroying the basis of life of people and nature," Bohling said.

"We are only at the beginning of the disaster with the climate, the extent of which will alter life in this planet in an unimaginable way," he warned.

Bohling called on leaders from the Group of Eight industrialised nations to take effective measures to ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at their June 6-8 summit in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm.

Some 20 Greenpeace volunteers from Germany and Turkey have already begun construction of the ark's model -- which is 10 metres (33 feet) long and four metres (13 feet) wide -- on the side of the mountain, Greenpeace said.

The ship will be unveiled in a public ceremony on May 31.

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