The head of the world's climate change science body has given his personal endorsement to an ambitious target of stabilising global levels of greenhouse gases at 350ppm.
The comments are contained in an AFP report.
"As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations," Rajendra Pachauri said.
"But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target," he told AFP.
The toughest scenario modelled in the IPCC's most recent assessment report, issued in 2007, involves stabilisation at about 450ppm CO2e.
Other proponents of a stabilisation goal of 350ppm include Al Gore, who told last year's UN climate talks in Poznan that the early steps in aiming to stabilise at 450ppm and aiming for 350ppm "are very similar".
"And we know from experience that once the process of change begins, once the momentum shifts, once the decisions are arrived at, then the task often becomes easier in the doing," Gore said.
Pachauri's comments were welcomed by the CEO of 350.org Australia, Blair Palese.
"Pachauri's call for 350ppm is a seismic shift that should re-define how we look at climate change and the urgent need for action," Palese said.
The comments show the world must "wake up to the need to reduce emissions to below our current levels right now", she said.
