Nations urged to agree on climate change action - soon

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called yesterday for the world's leading greenhouse gas-emitting countries to agree, and soon, on a goal of stabilising climate change.

The issue was the clearest example of of the clash between long-term interests and short-term pain, he said in a video link from Auckland to a climate change conference in Wellington.

"It's urgent. All the scientific indications are that it is getting worse and more quickly," he said.

"I don't want it on my conscience, or my generation's, that we knew about it but did nothing and left our children to deal with the consequences."

International agreement was needed which had the goal of stabilising the climate and which included all the main emitting countries including the United States, China and India.

China's emissions of the gases blamed for global warming increased every 10 months by the same amount as Australia emitted altogether in a year, he said.

Without such a clear signal to give governments and industries certainty the whole world was moving in that direction, we would not make the progress we needed to.

"The problem at the moment is no one is sure we can get a sufficiently strong international framework," said Mr Blair. "It will have to be universal and set a clear stabilisation goal with targets within it."

Countries needed to know that "everyone is on on this" to overcome fears about the loss of international competitiveness.

But it was also necessary to show people there were ways they could consume in a sustainable and responsible way.

"People do understand that climate change is happening and its long-term consequences are extremely serious," he said. Concerns about security of energy supplies provided an additional reason for action, Mr Blair said.

"It may well be that the United States [now outside the Kyoto agreement] comes into this for reasons as much to do with concerns about energy security."