CLIMATE (CONT)

A number of other studies have also shown that existing technologies combined with the right government policies could achieve emissions reductions between 20 and 40 percent relatively quickly at a modest or little cost.

Despite those studies, the public will have to pressure politicians to take action, said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Centre on Climate Change, a US-based NGO.

"The Europeans want to talk about how get to global emission reductions of 60 percent but the US is a long way from even thinking about that," Diringer told IPS. "It's going to take a 'perfect storm' of political alignment and public pressure to turn this around."

That "perfect storm" may come over the next two years as thousands of climate scientists finalise a series of studies and reports that will become the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate synthesis report.

The IPCC's 2007 report will be the authoritative and complete assessment of climate change and its impacts.

And it's unlikely to have much in the way of good news.

"It will be much more difficult for politicians not to take concrete action when that comes out," said Marshall.

As agreed in Montreal, negotiators will meet next March to start talking about how to reduce emissions when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012. That agreement took five years to create, and will go into effect 16 years after nations decided to do something about climate change.

Marshall thinks a new agreement with cuts of 20 percent or more could be completed relatively quickly if there's enough public pressure.

"However, there's a million ways this could still go off the rails over the next few years," he warned.

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