International development agency Christian Aid is calling on world leaders to agree an emergency programme of carbon emission cuts as a UN panel of leading scientists warns that climate change could have "abrupt and irreversible" consequences. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Mon today released the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which examines the evidence for climate change, its impact, and measures that could be taken to halt global warming. Intended as a guide for governments, it said the rise in global temperatures in recent decades is due principally to human causes, rather than natural ones. Christian Aid says the harmful effects of climate change caused by industrial pollution can already be widely seen, and are harming some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable communities. Andrew Pendleton, the charity's senior climate change policy analyst, who has examined the material on which the report is based, says: "It is difficult to welcome a document that contains so much bad news, but it is a timely, and very stark warning, that urgent action is needed. "Countries rich and poor need to agree an emergency programme where the industrialised world, which has grown rich through carbon emissions, puts its own house in order while helping emerging economies cut emissions. "There has been a lot of talk about climate change this year but what little action there currently is to cut emissions amounts to corrections in the margin when the whole story needs rewriting." Earlier this week a Christian Aid report, Truly Inconvenient, Tackling poverty and climate change at once, called on industrialised nations to honour its "carbon debt" to poorer countries, by paying billions to help focus their resources on sustainable development. It said the bill for wealthier nations should be determined by their historic responsibility for carbon production, and capacity to pay to put things right, according to the "polluter pays principle".

Truly Inconvenient, Tackling poverty and climate change at once http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/200711/carbon_debt.aspx

For further information, or to arrange an interview with a Christian Aid climate change expert, contact Andrew Hogg on 0207 523 2058, 0777 628 4953 and ahogg@christian-aid.org Notes to editors: • Christian Aid is a member of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, a growing movement, bringing together environment and development organisations, unions, faith, community and women's groups, working together on climate change. • Christian Aid is an international development agency working in around 50 countries with people of all religions and none.

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