A binding global warming accord, including financial aid for developing economies to combat climate change, will be pushed by President Arroyo in next month’s forum in Copenhagen, Denmark.

With climate change putting life on earth in danger, the President on Thursday declared her government’s “strong” position on climate change and urged fellow leaders from the East Asian region to ensure a successful outcome of the UN-sponsored talks.

“We are calling for a binding outcome in Copenhagen. We can no longer afford to play the blame game while we are mired in a climate debate. Climate change doesn’t make distinction between developed and developing economies when it hits,” she said.

“Both have respective roles and responsibilities in addressing this challenge based on the principle of common but different set of responsibilities and respective capacities,” she added.

The President, who is set to travel to Copenhagen next month to join climate change talks, said she would press for an agreement that would cover mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology to ease the impact of climate change as well as support for “green industries.”

“It is a primary interest to us that we ensure that any outcome in Copenhagen includes a cohesive and comprehensive financing mechanism to support climate change adaptation, disaster control management, and integrated coastal management,” she said.

In a related development, two years after the release of the benchmark study of the United Nations-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that noted the drastic changes in the climate, 26 international climate experts revealed in a new study that “climate change is accelerating beyond expectations.”

The 64-page report “Copenhagen Diagnosis” released last Wednesday, documented the key findings in climate change science since the publication of the landmark IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007.

The 26 researchers, 14 of whom are authors of the published IPCC reports, concluded that “several important aspects of climate change are occurring at the high end or even beyond the expectations of only a few years ago.”

Key findings of the study include; global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate; Arctic sea-ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than previously forecast.

“Sea level is rising much faster and Arctic sea ice cover shrinking more rapidly than we previously expected. Unfortunately, the data now show us that we have underestimated the climate crisis in the past,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of Physics of the Oceans and a Department Head at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

The research showed that Arctic sea-ice has melted far beyond the expectations of climate models, for example the area of summer sea-ice melt during 2007 to 2009 was about 40 percent greather than the average projection from the IPCC report in 2007.

Sea level has risen more than five centimeters over the past 15 years, about 80 percent higher than IPCC projections from 2001.

It also noted that global warming continues to track early IPCC projections based on greenhouse gas increases.

The researchers said that “Without significant mitigation, global mean warming could reach as high as seven degrees Celsius by 2100.”

“Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change. The task is urgent and the turning point must come soon. If we are to avoid more than two degrees Celsius warming, which many countries have already accepted as a goal, then emissions need to peak before 2020 and then decline rapidly,” said Professor Richard Somerville, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, United States.

The study noted that in 2008, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were about 40 percent higher than those in 1990.

It said that even if emissions do not grow beyond today’s levels, “within just 20 years the world will have used up the allowable emissions to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.”

“We have already almost exceeded the safe level of emissions that would ensure a reasonably secure climate future. Within just a decade global emissions need to be declining rapidly. A binding treaty is needed urgently to ensure unilateral action among the high emitters,” Professor Matthew England, ARC Federation Fellow and joint Director of the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of NSW, Australia, pointed out.

The report concluded that global emissions must peak then decline rapidly within the next five to 10 years for the world to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the very worst impacts of climate change.

To stabilize climate, global emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases need to reach near-zero well within this century, it added.

“This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen.

They need to know the stark truth about global warming and the unprecedented risks involved,” Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Chairman of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), said.

The study was released to fill the gap in between official IPCC reports, which was released in 2007 and the next assessment report which is scheduled on 2013.

It was also released in time with the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark from December 7 to 18, where 192 world leaders are expected to forge a new climate treaty before the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.