Leading climate scholar urges change

LONDON, Ecuador, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A leading environmental scientist urged British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to curtail plans for new coal plants in the wake of the Bali climate summit.

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said England's plans to develop new coal-fired power stations undermine the demands on emerging nations such as China and India to curb their greenhouse gas emissions, the Independent said Monday.

Hansen, a pioneer on the effects of climate change, said the level of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants will breach the threshold of safe atmospheric levels, causing irreversible effects on the climate.

"There is much more CO2 in coal than there is in oil, and oil is going to run out. There is enough CO2 in coal to take us far beyond the dangerous level to produce a different planet," he said.

World leaders finalized agreements on a new environmental treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol in Bali Saturday.

African and other developing nations urged the world's leading nations to lead the way to a greener future or step aside.