Representatives of the 20 biggest energy-using countries are meeting today in Mexico to discuss the threat of climate change.

The UK's foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, and environment secretary, David Miliband, join representatives of the other G8 industrialised nations and the emerging economies of China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.

These countries already have the greatest energy needs and many of the emerging nations are expected to have substantial rises in their emissions as their economies grow.

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The two-day meeting - which includes environment and energy ministers - is intended to build on last year's G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland.

At Gleneagles, the G8 members set up a new dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development and agreed a package of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. During the event in Monterrey delegates will hear from the former chief economist of the World Bank, Sir Nick Stern, who is leading a review on the economics of climate change for the Treasury, and from the president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz.

The organisers are hoping the 20 countries attending the event will agree that action to stop climate change is economically viable, that technologies already exist to limit carbon dioxide emissions and that there is investment available for countries to pay for this technology.

Writing on his blog ahead of the conference, Mr Miliband said the key issue was to win the argument in the developed and developing world "that green growth is not only necessary, it is possible".

"In fact climate change imposes such costs that there is an umbilical link between the environment and the economy," he added.

He said over 200,000 jobs had been created in the UK in the environmental industries since 2001.

"But the link also arises from the fact that the costs of adaptation to climate change dwarf those of preventing it; that will be at the centre of the Mexico talks," he added.

The World Bank is currently looking into the development of an Energy Investment Framework to encourage large-scale investment in projects to encourage energy efficiency.

It will report on its progress during the conference.

Greenpeace has launched a court action claiming the government's recent energy review, which backed a new generation of nuclear power plants, was "legally flawed".

In legal papers lodged at the high court in London today, the environmental campaign group argues that the government did not carry out the full public consultation to which it had committed itself before making its decision.

Greenpeace says that if its judicial review application succeeds, the government will be forced to ditch the conclusions of the energy review and carry out a much fuller consultation on the full range of issues relating to building new nuclear reactors in the UK.

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The energy review, according to Greenpeace, failed to resolve key issues such as dealing with radioactive waste, financial costs and the design of the reactors.

Greenpeace says its concerns are shared by a range of key parties, including the Environment Agency, Unison, the Commons environmental audit committee and some former cabinet ministers.

Sarah North, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, said: "The government promised a full public consultation before giving the green light to a dangerous new set of nuclear power stations, yet they have absolutely failed to do this. This is why Greenpeace is launching this legal challenge.

"Given that there are much more sophisticated, effective and safer ways than nuclear power to meet our energy demands and cut our climate change emissions, Greenpeace feels compelled to challenge the government on its irrational and unsubstantiated pro-nuclear policy."

No date has yet been set for an initial court hearing.

He's set up the world's largest protected marine reserve, raised air pollution standards and pledged to end damaging fishing, but President Bush still draws environmentalists' ire for his stance on global warming.

Ecologically minded critics view Bush's many "green" initiatives as incremental steps -- not the sort of bold action they say is needed to combat global climate change.

"It would be like paying attention to giving your loved ones a good manicure when they need medicine and operations for major illnesses," said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This year has seen the Bush administration promoting numerous environmental plans, most recently by announcing last week that the United States will work to eliminate destructive fishing practices like bottom trawling.

In September, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new proposed air quality standards that the agency's chief proclaimed were the toughest in U.S. history. Environmentalists said the standards fell short of what scientists -- including EPA's own experts -- recommended as safe.

In June, Bush consulted with such boldface environmental names as underwater explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau -- Jacques Cousteau's son -- and marine biologist Sylvia Earle to set up the massive Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, the world's biggest ocean reserve.

Doniger and others were appreciative but ultimately unimpressed.

'SAFE, SECOND-TIER ISSUES'

"Who could be against setting aside a Hawaiian park?" Doniger asked rhetorically in a telephone interview. "But these are safe, second-tier issues that don't offend any of the industries that they care about."

These industries, Doniger said, include coal, oil, auto making and electric power.

In his 2004 re-election campaign, Bush got more than $4.7 million from the energy industry, $4.8 million from the transportation industry, $4.9 million from agribusiness and $33.8 million from the finance, insurance and real estate industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which keeps track of federal election statistics.

Brendan Bell of the Sierra Club also cited Bush's ties to oil, autos and utilities as helping to shape what he said was an "atrocious" environmental policy.

"The Bush administration on every issue has made it an art to say what the public wants to hear and do the opposite," Bell said by telephone.

He cited the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which he said aided in cutting down trees. The official White House Web site, www.whitehouse.gov, said the plan was meant to cut "the risk of catastrophic fires by thinning dense undergrowth and brush in priority locations."

Bush's public stand on global warming has evolved since he took office in 2001. Initially, he noted the phenomenon of global climate change but questioned whether the change was caused by human activities or was due to natural cycles.

By July 2006, through, Bush said he accepted that "an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem" of global warming.

In his first year as president, Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming. Bush said the agreement was "unrealistic" and would hurt U.S. workers, offering an alternative plan offering incentives for a voluntary cut in emissions.

U.S. action on global warming is key to solving the problem, according to Michael Oppenheimer, an environmental expert at Princeton University.

"Until the U.S. acts, it is unlikely that developing countries will begin to deal with the problem," Oppenheimer said in a Web chat with reporters last week. "Unless the big developing countries, as well as the U.S. and Europe, start limiting emissions significantly over the next 15 years or so, we will have no chance to meet such an objective."

Today is a bleak day for the environment, the day of the year when mankind over-exploits the world's resources - the day when we start living beyond our ecological means.

Evidence is mounting that rapid population growth and rising living standards among the Earth's six billion inhabitants are putting an intolerable strain on nature. For the first time an organisation ­ a British think-tank ­ has sought to pinpoint how quickly man is using the global resources of farming land, forests, fish, air and energy.

The new economics foundation has calculated from research by a US academic group, Global Footprint Network, that the day when we use more than our fair share of the Earth ­ when "humanity starts eating the planet" ­ is October 9.

In other words, assuming that the world has a certain quantity of natural resources that can sustainably be used up each year, today is the date at which this annual capacity is reached. And environmentalists warn that just as a company bound for bankruptcy plunging into the red or a borrower " maxing out" on credit cards must face the consequences, so must man.

The biggest problem relating to the over-consumption of resources is climate change, but its other effects include deforestation, falling agricultural yields and overfishing.

Overfishing is one of the most easily understood examples of the abuse of nature. Catching too many fish has left species that were once common, such as cod in the North Sea and bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, struggling to survive.

Although it is possible to make ever-increasing catches for a while, eventually only small, juvenile fish are left, and stocks become unviable. Similarly, emissions of greenhouse gases are rising, exacerbated by the growth of China and India, but the climate is poised to wreak its revenge. Already polar ice caps are melting at a rate that is startling scientists, and examples of extreme weather, such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in August last year, are being attributed to global climate change. In February, when he was Defence Secretary, John Reid revealed that British military planners were already preparing for conflicts arising from the scramble for resources in 20 to 30 years' time.

Outlining the impact of global warming, he said: "Impacts such as flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure."

Global Footprint estimates that the human race is over-using the Earth's resources by 23 per cent. While each individual should use up no more than the equivalent of 1.8 hectares of the Earth's surface, the actual area we use is 2.2 hectares per person.

Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of Global Footprint Network, which analyses 6,000 pieces of data from such sources as the United Nations, warned that the limit of the Earth's endurance had already been reached.

He said: "Humanity is living off its ecological credit card and can only do this by liquidating the planet's natural resources."

According to nef's analysis, the unsustainability of human behaviour has speeded up markedly. Humanity started living beyond its means on a global level in 1987, when the limit of sustainability was reached on 19 December. By 1995, the day was arriving by 21 November and began arriving in October shortly after the millennium.

Consumption is particularly profligate in the West, where individuals consume air-freighted food, buy hardwood furniture, enjoy foreign holidays and own cars. Global Footprint estimates the world would need five planet Earths to sustain a global materialistic society such as that in the US while almost three would be needed for the UK.

By contrast, developing countries such as Kenya use a fraction of the resources. Nef highlighted the energy wasted in trade. In 2004, for example, Britain exported 1,500 tons of potatoes to Germany and imported the same amount. We sent 10,200 tons of milk and cream to France and imported 9,900 tons.

Andrew Simms, policy director of nef, warned the world was living far beyond our environmental means.

Professor Tim Jackson, head of sustainable development at Surrey University, one of Britain's leading experts in sustainability, said the research was broadly right and that we are using resources faster than they can be replaced by the planet.

He said: "We are clearly drawing natural capital and the point about collapse is that we don't know when some of the systems in the global atmosphere and fish will collapse but we do know that collapse is a very real possibility."

Our dwindling natural assets

Fisheries - Degradation of the marine ecosystem is one of the world's biggest problems after climate change. Many fish population have shrunk by 90 per cent in 50 years. Species in particular danger are bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and Atlantic and cod in the North Sea.

Energy - Oil reserves are fast running out: "peak oil" - the point from which oil reserves start to decline - is imminent, with world consumption of oil at 84 million barrels a day. In turn, the burning of fossil fuels is the largest source of emissions of CO2.

Some 13 million hectares of forest are lost every year, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Almost 20 per cent of The Amazon - the world's " lung" - has been felled. In 2004 the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon was the second highest on record, caused by the boom in growing soya beans. Deforestation of tropical rainforests may account for the loss of as many as 100 species a day.

Water - Population growth, pollution and climate change are making water a scarce resource. Only 2 per cent of water on Earth is fresh, the rest is salt or trapped in glaciers and snow. By 2050, 7 billion people in 60 countries could be short of drinking water.

Farming land - Overfarming drains the soil of nutrients, while the chemicals used in the process pollute waterways. Farming uses 70 per cent of the world's water supply: to provide 2,700 calories a day requires 4,300 litres (more than seven bathtubs) of water.

In a market economy, the only constraints on what we consume are what we may legally buy and what we can afford.

The result is, as the great environmental economist Herman Daly warned, that we end up treating the planet as if it were a business in liquidation. If you were managing a business, you would be considered grossly negligent if you had no idea of your assets or cash flow. Yet this is how we manage our environmental resources.

When we deplete oil in the North Sea and push fish stocks to the edge of collapse, it is treated as free income to the economy. It is shockingly easy for politicians, economists and planners to forget that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. And, on our island planet, that Earth itself is subject to fuzzy but very real limits.

One of the defining features of life in the UK, the world's fourth-largest economy, is the sheer scale of our material consumption, and the ease with which we ignore the burden that it exports around the globe.

Our high-consuming lifestyle is only possible because the rest of the world supports us with large supplies of their own natural resources.

No individual country has to be self-reliant. We trade what we can't produce locally, and positively enjoy exotic goods that come from all around the globe.

The world as a whole is living beyond its ecosystems' capacity to regenerate, and, looked at in terms of a calendar year, starts living beyond its environmental means on 9 October. Looking back, if the whole world had wanted to share UK lifestyles in 1961, the Earth would just have managed with its available resources - one planet would have been enough. Today we would need 3.1 planets to support them. To live within our overall environmental budget, the UK will have to reduce the burden its lifestyles create; such as the massive growth of leisure flights and subsequent CO2 emissions.

And while our consumption grows, with everything from 4x4s to energy hungry wide-screen TVs, all the academic research shows that consuming more will not make us happier. The same research shows that getting-off the consumption treadmill, finding more time for friends and family, reflection and creative pastimes, can.

Mainstream economics says that nothing must get in the way of economic growth and competitiveness. But in doing so we are inadvertently waging war on the environment, forgetting that, if we win, we will find ourselves on the losing side.

Andrew Simms is policy director at the New Economics Foundation

A climate change bill which could see regular targets put in place to cut UK carbon dioxide emissions is being considered by the government.

An independent system to gauge progress in reducing greenhouse gases is also likely to be included, BBC political editor Nick Robinson said.

The move follows a campaign by Friends of the Earth - supported by the Tories and Liberal Democrats - for such a law.

A Nasa study says the world is the warmest it has been for 12,000 years.

Pace of change

The climate change bill is likely to be included in next month's Queen's Speech.

Mr Robinson said a proposal, from Friends of the Earth, that ministers should be fined for missing environmental targets, would not be included.

Last month, Environment Secretary David Miliband said people "should be scared" by global warming and that more were recognising that "something funny is going on with the weather".

He has warned that the pace of action has to be much faster or carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 will be 137% higher than in 2003.

Meanwhile, environment minister Ben Bradshaw met supermarket bosses on Thursday to discuss the best way of reducing the amount of plastic carrier bags given away by supermarkets.

He would not rule out imposing new laws if retailers did not agree to a voluntary code.

Nasa scientists said last month that the world was at its warmest for the last 12,000 years as a result of rapid changes over the past 30 years.

The average temperature had increased by about 0.2C (0.4F) in each of the last three decades.

Pollution from human activity was pushing the world towards dangerous levels of climate change, Nasa warned