Britain yesterday called for a broad international agreement to curb pollution amid signs that natural disasters may be linked to global warming.
Energy ministers from 20 countries held informal talks in London to discuss how to tackle climate change through technology and persuade big polluters the United States, India and China to become involved in the fight.
"It is imperative that we find new ways to cooperate and develop a shared understanding of how the world can respond to climate change," said Margaret Beckett, Britain's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary.
"There is more evidence that the oceans are warming, that a long term reduction in arctic ice cover is accelerating and that the strength of hurricanes has increased in the last 30 years," she said.
The United States, which did not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saw its Gulf Coast battered by a record number of hurricanes this year.
Britain wants to achieve a consensus on how to move beyond the Kyoto treaty, which does not cover developing countries such as India and China whose carbon dioxide emissions are soaring as their economies expand.
"It is clear that for China and India the priority is (economic) development," Ms Beckett told a news briefing.
Yesterday's summit brought the G8 group of industrialised nations alongside major developing countries, including India and China.
It is the first meeting after an agreement at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in July which emphasised the importance of climate-friendly technologies such as technology designed to capture and store greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations.
The meeting comes ahead of a major United Nations climate change summit in Montreal later this month where officials from 150 countries will discuss how to take Kyoto beyond 2012, when the pact's first phase ends.
World carbon dioxide emissions are forecast to soar 60 per cent by 2030, mainly due to a rise in pollution from developing countries which are building hundreds of dirty coal-fired power stations to power fast-growing economies.
Growth in China and India will be powered to a large extent by polluting coal, which is relatively cheap and easily available. The impact on CO2 emissions will be reduced if the countries use new clean coal technology.
Many scientists blame the rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2, in the last century for causing global warming whose worst effects could include rising seas levels and flooding.
The International Energy Agency, the industrialised countries' energy watchdog, has called for urgent measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions, 80 per cent of which come from energy use.
The European Union this year launched a carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme under which companies have to reduce their pollution and can trade carbon credits in a new market.
The scheme, the world's first international emissions market, is likely to be expanded to include the aviation industry.
Britain's own CO2 emissions have risen in recent years after falling sharply in the 1990s when generators built new clean gas-fired power stations to replace more polluting coal ones.
The country will meet its Kyoto target on reducing CO2 pollution but is likely to miss more ambitious domestic goals.