UN chief to G8: climate change, food crisis linked

On the plus side, people were driving less, and renewable energy was winning more attention. For the first time, the International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for oil demand, he said.

At the same time, "very poor people who spend the bulk of their income on survival are not happy to see energy prices go up," he said.

De Boer welcomed the move by the board of the World Bank on Tuesday formally launching two special investment funds for climate change that could raise up to US$10 billion.

The funds have been sharply criticized by some environmentalists who distrust the bank's environmental record and say the money should be put in the hands of de Boer's U.N. organization.

"The Bank's new climate funds will undermine U.N. climate talks, increase debt and pay polluters," said the Friends of the Earth in a statement Friday.

De Boer said, however, the bank's funds had a clause that will phase them out when a new financial structure is adopted in a climate change treaty. That accord should be negotiated by the end of next year.

More than $200 billion will be needed annually by 2030 to bring the world's emissions down to 1990 levels--and still more will be needed to reduce that by half over the next 20 years, he said.

"We will have to mobilize every possible financial channel to meet that challenge," he said.