Report: Global warming panel warns gas emissions must be reversed in 13 years

A U.N.-backed panel of international scientists is to warn that dangerous gas emissions must decline by 2020 if global warming is to be halted, German media reported Friday.

But the final part of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change insists that cutting carbon dioxide emissions alone is not enough.

It urges industry and business leaders to invest US$16 billion (euro12.18 billion) in the renewable energy sector and calls on auto makers to start producing smaller, more energy-efficient cars, according to the the online edition of Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Der Spiegel Online also carried advance findings of the report, not due to be released until May.

Last month in Paris, in a major announcement on climate change, the group issued the first part of its findings, warning that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the cause is "very likely" man-made, and the menace will "continue for centuries."

According to Spiegel, the third part of the report concentrates on specific measures that must be taken in order to combat the effects of warming, including increased use of bio-fuels and hybrid fuel cars and the construction of new nuclear power stations, particularly in developing countries.

It also calls for goals related to fighting the increase of the Earth's temperature to diversify into a "multi-gas strategy" that targets reductions in the amount of methane, nitrous oxide and other damaging gasses.

"Goals on climate change have to be more flexible and lest costly to reach than just purely CO2 strategies," Spiegel cited the report as saying.

Hans-Holger Rogner, head of planning and economic studies for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, who is working on the introduction to the IPCC's report, to be released in Bangkok, insisted any information coming out now is subject to major changes and cannot be "considered correct."

He expressed little surprise at the reported recommendations for the increased use of bio fuels and hybrid cars and the construction of new nuclear power stations.

"These are the natural options. More efficient (cars), more renewables, nuclear," Rogner said.