Five years to save planet - report

The document, Climate Solutions: WWF's Vision For 2050, shows that the world can produce more than enough sustainable energy to curb climate change, but only if key decisions are made by 2012.

The report goes beyond the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent conclusions that the world could successfully use new technologies to limit carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and shows how this can be done using only sustainable, environmentally friendly energy sources.

"Climate Solutions" also shows that the necessary cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved without resorting to the nuclear option.

The World Wildlife Fund said the finding is in stark contrast to the UK Government's insistence - expected to be confirmed in the forthcoming Energy White Paper - that new nuclear power stations are needed to meet its own less ambitious emission reduction targets.

James Leape, WWF International's Director General said: "The world has never been more aware of climate change, or the urgent need to slow its advance.

"The question for leaders and governments everywhere is how to rein in dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide emissions without stunting development and reducing living standards.

"The Climate Solutions report shows not only that this can be done, it shows how we can do it.

"We have a small window of time in which we can plant the seeds of change, and that is the next five years. We cannot afford to waste them.

"This is not something that governments can put off until the future. Governments in power now have a unique opportunity, a duty, to do something big for the future of the planet. If they fail, generations to come will have to live with the compromises and hardships caused by their inability to act."