Climate change, the threat of rising sea levels and damage to agriculture and water supply must be tackled. "We cannot deny climate change, ignore it or hope it will go away," he said. "There will be pain in this for industry, and members of the public will have to make sacrifices."

Mr Meacher was speaking at a World Wide Fund for Nature conference ahead of the Climate Change Convention in Japan in December. Many countries, including the US and Austria, have failed to set any targets beyond 2000.

He criticised multi-national oil companies who belonged to the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group which he said had done its best to undermine the science of global warming and damage the negotiations. He praised BP, which has just resigned from the coalition, and its group chief executive, John Brown, who has endorsed the development of solar power.

"Other oil companies may find that they miss out on commercial opportunities that will arise from technologies and other developments, Mr Meacher said.

Cars with smaller, more efficient engines were a priority. Taxes to achieve this and a reduction in the road traffic were being considered.

Martin Parry, chairman of the UK Climate Impacts Research Group, said world targets were not enough to prevent a serious climatic disaster for the UK.

An increase in temperatures of about 1C would would be reached by 2020 and was probably unavoidable. Agriculture in the South-east, industry and householders would suffer from lack of water as droughts increased. Water supply problems in most of England would affect soils, flora and fauna. There would be some gains. Extra rain in the North-west would improve farming there, and trees would grow faster be cause of the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Britain would get more tourists but in general the economy would suffer.