UN panel issues stark climate change warning

Scientists said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia raised most objections overnight and sought to tone down the findings, including those about the likely pace of extinctions.

Other participants said the United States, which cited high costs when it pulled out of Kyoto, had opposed a suggested text that said parts of North America could suffer "severe economic damage" from climate change.

China, the second largest source of greenhouse gases after the United States, insisted on cutting a reference to "very high confidence" that climate change was already affecting "many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans".

But delegates sharpened other sections, including adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend 5 to 10 percent of gross domestic product on adapting to climate change.

Overall, the report was the strongest U.N. assessment yet of the threat of climate change, predicting water shortages that could affect billions of people and a rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries.

Its review of the regional impact of change built on an IPCC report in February saying that human greenhouse gas emissions were more than 90 percent sure to have stoked recent warming.

(With additional reporting by David Lawsky in Brussels and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington)