UK ramps up embryo research debate

search for a new international treaty than the Bush administration. Pachauri said there was still time for the developed countries to convince India and China to sign a new deal next year, but that it would require a series of " measures and actions " in the next few months. He urged other rich countries to follow Europe's lead and set ambitious carbon reduction targets for the next ten years. But some researchers now believe that these tough targets may not be enough to achieve the stable, manageable greenhouse gas sought by policymakers. goal of stabilising carbon dioxide levels at 550 parts per million in the atmospheres, may be still too high to avoid catastrophic climate change. Hansen has based his latest comments not on models, which have always attracted criticism from climate change detractors, but from historical evidence of previous atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations measured from samples taken from the ocean floor. Lord Stern, the economist whose report on climate change helped to galvanise world leaders behind the green energy movement when it was published 18 months ago, has admitted that the situation is far worse than the assumptions that formed the basis of his report. " We badly underestimated the degree of damages and the risks of climate change, " he said in a speech in London last month. " All of the links in the chain are on average worse than we thought a couple of years ago. " When it was first published, the Stern Review and its recommendations — zero emission cars around the world by 2050, for example — brought plaudits and brickbats from the different sides of the climate change debate. A year and a half on from its publication, Lord Stern dismissed the doubters and renewed his call for urgent global action. " People who said this was scaremongering are profoundly wrong. If anything, I was too reticent. What we are playing for is the transformation of the planet, " he said. Greenhouse gas emissions are growing much faster than previously thought because of several factors that were not fully appreciated before, including the release of methane from thawing permafrost, the acidification of the oceans, and the decay of carbon sinks. The worsening situation increases the need, he argues, for a global pollution-cutting agreement to be reached by next year's Copenhagen climate conference. He also highlights the soaring use of coal for …