A United Nations report release on Sunday said the cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest" if governments begin to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere immediately, according to the Associated Press.
The study, drawing on work by more than 1,000 experts, said a radical shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy such as wind, solar or nuclear power would shave only about 0.06 of a percentage point a year off world economic growth, according to the AP.
Delay in acting to cut emissions until 2030 would force far greater use of such technologies, a 33-page summary for policymakers said.
According to the report, delays until 2030 could force the use of little-tested technologies to extract greenhouse gases from the air, the AP reported.
"Ambitious mitigation may even require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," the IPCC said in the report, the AP reported.
"It does not cost the world to save the planet," said Ottmar Edenhofer, a German scientist who is co-chair of a meeting of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the AP reported.
The report was endorsed by governments worldwide and will be the main scientific guide for nations working on a U.N. deal to be agreed in late 2015 to rein in greenhouse gas emissions that have hit repeated highs this century, led by China's industrial growth, according to the AP.
Governments have promised to limit temperature rises to a maximum 3.6 Fahrenheit above pre-industrial times to avert ever more heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels that the IPCC says are linked to man-made warming, the AP reported.
The report said such levels were still attainable, but policies in place so far put the world on target for a temperature rise of up to 8.6F by 2100, according to the AP.
IPCC scenarios showed world emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, would need to peak soon and tumble by between 40 and 70 percent from 2010 levels by 2050, and then to almost zero by 2100, the AP reported.
The IPCC said that natural gas, which emits fewer greenhouse gases than coal, could get a boost until about 2050, according to the AP.
