OPEC says British climate change report "unfounded"

MOSCOW, Oct 31 (Reuters) A hard-hitting report on climate change published by the British government has no basis in science or economics, OPEC's Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said today.

The report written by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said that failure to tackle climate change could push world temperatures up by 5 degrees Celsius over the next century, causing severe floods and harsh droughts and uprooting many as 200 million people.

The study recommended taking action now to offset the far greater cost of dealing with climate change later.

But Barkindo told an energy conference in Moscow that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) -- which holds around two thirds of the world's oil reserves -- opposed such research efforts.

''We find some of the so-called initiatives of the rich industrialised countries who are supposed to take the lead in combating climate change rather alarming,'' he said.

''One recent example is the review on climate change that was issued yesterday by the UK government in London.'' Stern's report published yesterday was welcomed by environmental activists as well as by the British government and the European Commission. The White House Council on Environmental Quality said it was a contribution to an abundance of economic analysis on climate change.

Barkindo said it was misguided but he did not elaborate on possible solutions to the problem.

''The mitigation and adaptation to climate change can only be accomplished on the principles of common responsibility and respected capabilities and not by scenarios that have no foundations in either science or economics as we had yesterday from London,'' he said.

OPEC is made up of Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Australia, which alongside the United States has not signed the Kyoto Protocol designed to curb Greenhouse gas emissions, also said today it did not accept the British report.

REUTERS AKJ VV1452