Avoiding worst damages of climate change possible, UN panel says

The world can, by acting urgently, curb carbon emissions enough to avert worst-case scenarios for climate change, UN experts said as they met in Berlin to weigh options for action.

"The literature here shows that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions ... remain possible," said Ottmar Edenhofer, who helped oversee the latest volume in a report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Achieving this goal, Edenhofer warned, would require a break from today's relentlessly upward trend in emissions. It would entail "challenging technological, economic, institutional and behaviour change", he said.

The United Nations announced that global investments in renewable energy slumped 14 per cent last year, with China pouring more money into the sector than Europe for the first time on record.

Investments in renewables apart from hydroelectricity dipped to US$214.4 billion last year, down US$35.1 billion from the previous year and 23 per cent below the record set in 2011, according to a report from the UN Environment Programme.

Envoys and scientists from the climate change panel's 195 member countries are meeting after the panel issued its starkest ever warning about the perils of a ravaged climate system for future generations. The risk of conflict, hunger, floods and mass displacement increase with every upward creep of the mercury, the IPCC said.