Doha - Poor nations must make haste to curb greenhouse gas emissions as even an impossible zero-percent pollution target for the developed world by 2030 won't stop calamitous climate change, a report warned on Tuesday.







The UN goal is to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 deg Fahrenheit) - a level at which scientists believe we may yet avoid the worst effects of climate change.




But there is also a ray of hope, the report said - accelerating the pace of change towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy is still feasible.

For a reasonable chance at making the 2C target, greenhouse gas emissions must fall from about 50 billion tons per year now to less than 35 billion tons in 2030.

Yet on current patterns, developing countries would probably spew out 37-38 billion tons in 2030 compared to rich country emissions of about 11-14 billion tons - about two thirds of the total.

In 1990, the baseline from which the UN has set emission cuts for about 40 rich nations and the European Union, developing nations' contribution was only about one third.

China has since 1990 become the world's biggest emitter of CO2, while India moved ahead of Russia in 2011 to become the world's fourth-biggest polluter, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Neither China nor India, due to their developing nation status, has binding emissions curb targets under the Kyoto Protocol - nor has the world's second biggest carbon spewer, the United States, which refused to ratify it.



In 2006, economist Stern authored one of the most influential reports in the history of climate change - warning it could cost the world at least five percent of gross domestic product (GDP) each year. - Sapa-AFP