Planet is running out of time, says Meacher

US rejection of Kyoto climate plan 'risks uninhabitable Earth'.

Britain will today launch its strongest attack on George Bush's rejection of the Kyoto climate protocol, as the government warns that Washington's actions threaten to make the planet "uninhabitable".

Angered by the US government's decision to rule out signing up to Kyoto for the next 10 years, the environment minister, Michael Meacher, writes in today's Guardian that the world is running out of time. "We do not have much time and we do not have any serious option. If we do not act quickly to minimise runaway feedback effects [from global warming] we run the risk of making this planet, our home, uninhabitable."

The minister's intervention came after Washington's chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, said in London earlier this week that an independent US initiative to cut emissions of greenhouse gases would not be assessed until 2012. "We are not going to be part of the Kyoto protocol for the foreseeable future," he announced.

Mr Watson's remarks prompted an outspoken attack on the US by Mr Meacher. "I am so disappointed that this week the US refused to reconsider coming back into the climate talks for 10 years. The need for action is urgent," he writes.

Tony Blair also admitted last night that Britain and the US were at odds over the Kyoto protocol, the international agreement drawn up to help slow, and mitigate the effects of, climate change.

In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight, the prime minister said: "On Kyoto, there is a difference of opinion. We have made that clear."

Mr Meacher takes a swipe at the US's apparent complacency when he warns that there are strong reasons for "doubting the comforting US picture that there's plenty of time to deal with the problem". The minister adds: "One [reason] is that climate change may be not steady but abrupt; the other is that the pressures we inflict on the climate may trigger wholly unexpected developments from feedback effects."

Latest scientific evidence suggests the impact of climate change on Britain could be "faster and sharper" than expected, says Mr Meacher. Almost two million homes in England and Wales are at risk from floods, and Britain will experience a 65% increase in river flooding if defences do not account for climate change.

"The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change ... has forecast that global average temperatures will rise by between 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by 2100.

"That may not sound much. But it is worth remembering that the last ice age, when much of the northern hemisphere was buried under an ice pack thousands of feet thick, was triggered by a fall in temperature of only some five degrees Celsius."

A rise in temperature of just 5.8C could melt glaciers and Greenland's ice sheet, causing a rise in sea water that could submerge island nations.

Mr Meacher's intervention comes after the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, said he would not attend an environmental summit at a Bali resort next month.

Mr Prescott was criticised for considering attending the summit, a preparatory meeting for the Earth Summit in Johannesburg this September. Amid reports that the trip would cost taxpayers £250,000, he said Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, would be the only cabinet minister attending.

Speaking to the parliamentary Labour party, the deputy prime minister said: "I'm not going to Bali. But I live in hope."