November 22, 2006 — By Jeremy Lovell, Reuters
LONDON — The world has less than a decade to take decisive action in the battle to beat global warming or risk irreversible change that will tip the planet towards catastrophe, a leading U.S. climate scientist said on Tuesday.
And the United States, the world’ biggest polluter but major climate laggard, has a vital role to play in leading that fight, James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters on a visit to London.
“The biggest problem is that the United States is not taking an active leadership role — quite the reverse,” he said.
“We have to be on a fundamentally different path within a decade,” said the man who earlier this year caused an outcry when he revealed that scientific warnings on the climate crisis were being rewritten by White House officials.
