Environment ministers meet after climate warning

NAIROBI, Feb 5 (Reuters) Environment ministers began meeting in Kenya today to study whether booming global trade can be modified to help save the planet, days after the toughest warning yet that mankind is to blame for global warming.

Governments are under pressure to act on the findings of the IPCC, the UN body assessing climate change, which forecast more storms, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels ''most likely'' caused by burning fossil fuels and other activities.

Achim Steiner -- head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which hosts the week-long talks attended by nearly 100 nations -- said globalisation was running down the world's resources while not delivering the benefits expected of it.

But there are many examples of sustainable management, from the certification of resources like timber and fish to avoid illegal exploitation to ''creative'' financial mechanisms such as the rapidly expanding carbon market, Steiner added.

''We need to harness the power of the consumer, match calls for international regulation from the private sector and set realistic standards and norms for the globalised markets,'' he said in a statement before the meeting.

Ringing in delegates' ears was the warning of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said there was a more than 90 per cent chance humans were behind most of the warming in the past 50 years.

UN officials hope the report will spur governments -- particularly the United States, the biggest emitter -- and companies to do more to cut greenhouse gases, released mainly by power plants, factories and cars fuelling modern lifestyles.

As well as globalisation, this week's UNEP Governing Council talks in Nairobi will focus on the growing threat from mercury pollution, the rising demand for biofuels and UN reforms.

For the first time, they draw top officials from other agencies, including World Trade Organisation boss Pascal Lamy.

''I believe (his) presence shows there is no longer one-way traffic in respect to trade and the environment,'' Steiner said.

Reuters AKJ DS1133