Evidence of warming growing: Pachauri

Rajendra Pachauri, whose panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. vice president Al Gore, said the downturn could dominate for 2-3 months before politicians return to focus on fixing long-term problems like global warming.

"The evidence ... is getting stronger by the day. We have much more evidence available of what the human role is in climate change," he told Reuters . "One has every reason to take action on what's already been said."

Pachauri's panel, which draws on the work of 2,500 scientists, said last year that it was at least 90 percent sure that mankind was to blame for warming and forecast more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.

He said at the moment everything seemed to be "on the back burner" because of worries about the financial system. "I'm absolutely sure that climate change will be the last thing people will think about at this point in time."

"But it's not going to go away," he said. "Sooner or later, they will come back to it." 

"Eleven of the last 12 years have been the warmest ever recorded. The trend is very clear," he said.

He predicted that the financial crunch would bring "soul searching about how society might act to reduce dependence on fossil fuels" and shift to renewable energies such as wind, solar or hydropower.

More than 190 governments have agreed to work out a new U.N. climate treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 37 industrialized nations to make cuts in emissions of an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Pachauri said he hoped that the world could agree strong action by the end of 2009.

He said that the next U.S. president, would do more to fight climate change. And he expressed optimism that McCain could fight off skepticism by some Republicans.