The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up to establish a scientific consensus on global warming and suggest concrete solutions, has released another report, its fourth.

The summary said the world has to make significant cuts in emissions through increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles, moving more quickly from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, and reforming both the forestry and farming sectors. The report made clear that the funds and the technology exist to act in time to avoid the sharp rise in temperatures that could wipe out species, raise ocean levels, wreak economic havoc and trigger droughts in some places and flooding in others.

Under the most stringent scenario, the report said the world must stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2015 to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees over preindustrial levels. Delegates said the approval of the report should conclusively debunk arguments by skeptics that combatting global warming was too costly, that it would stifle development in poorer countries, or that the temperature rise had gone too far to change.

The Economist provides an interesting look at this report here.