London, December 3 (ANI): The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming has said that it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.

According to a report in the Guardian, James Hansen, the world’s pre-eminent climate scientist, any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

“I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it’s a disaster track,” said Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

“The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing, then people will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means,” he added.

Hansen vehemently opposed to the carbon market schemes - in which permits to pollute are bought and sold - which are seen by the EU and other governments as the most efficient way to cut emissions and move to a new clean energy economy.

He is also fiercely critical of US President Barack Obama - and even Al Gore, who won a Nobel peace prize for his efforts to get the world to act on climate change - saying politicians have failed to meet what he regards as the moral challenge of our age.

In Hansen’s view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the compromises that rule the world of elected politics.

“This is analagous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill,” he said.

“On those kind of issues, you cannot compromise. You can’t say let’s reduce slavery, let’s find a compromise and reduce it 50 percent or reduce it 40 percent,” he added.

“We don’t have a leader who is able to grasp it and say what is really needed. Instead, we are trying to continue business as usual,” he further added.

In spite Hansen’s pessimism, he insists there is still hope.

“It may be that we have already committed to a future sea level rise of a metre or even more but that doesn’t mean that you give up,” he said. (ANI)