"Rampant consumerism" culture must change if we are to prevent global warming, warned government’s chief scientific adviser yesterday.

Speaking at GovNet’s Sustainable Development UK 2007: Global Challenges – Local Change event, Sir David King said we already have the technology to combat climate change, but society needs to adapt in order to meet the challenge.

"Wellbeing and sustainability - these have to be the two new foci for our attention as we move through the 21st century. This does require a complete culture rethink, compared to the rampant consumerism that created all the wealth we have today."

"We now need to rethink where our culture is taking us," he said.

King said worldwide population growth and increased life expectancy were the great successes of the last century, but "population growth plus burning fossil fuels is driving carbon dioxide upwards."

He said we need to plan now for the impact of a world population of 9.5bn by mid-century.

"We have two things to do. The first is to adapt to changes already in the pipeline. Adaptation takes a long time. It is a local issue which must be dealt with locally. Secondly we have to mitigate. Mitigation is a responsibility for all of us. By this I mean the whole world…that’s why I think this is the biggest challenge our civilisation has ever had to face up to."

He emphasised the urgency of action to prevent future disasters, giving examples of the changes we are already experiencing. "By 2050 average central European summer temperatures will be the same as that extremely hot summer of 2003."

King also said climate change in Darfur had led to a 30% decrease in rainfall over 15 years.

"Darfur is arguably the first climate change conflict, and we can we can anticipate far more of these…we have just 2 to 3 decades to play out what is already in the pipeline."

He added there was potential for 50s of millions of displaced people by 2080.

Significantly, King said that the West could take relatively straightforward carbon-cutting measures (for example improved domestic insulation) which would save vast amounts of money though using less energy. He said this figure roughly equates to the cost of measures that would need to be taken in developing countries, such as India or China in order to bring carbon down to safe levels.

What is now required is a mechanism to ensure economic benefits are balanced worldwide and do not simply disadvantage the developing countries. "G8 progress is very slow but I am optimistic we will have a global agreement by early 2009."