The EU has been urged to take urgent action to tackle climate change after a recent report revealed the phenomenon was accelerating.
A new study by environmental campaigners WWF claims that some climate change is happening more quickly and more extensively than previously predicted.
The report states that ice in the Arctic Ocean is disappearing at least 30 years before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted.
Other effects include a variety of severe weather condition.
"Under global warming, summer ozone levels are projected to be similar to those found during the summer of 2003 [when some 35,000 extra deaths occurred across Europe as a result of heat stress], with the largest increase projected to occur over England, Belgium, Germany and France," the paper claimed.
The WWF called on the EU to set more ambitious targets for carbon dioxide emissions reduction and to increase the proportion of electricity which comes from renewables.
However, Italy has claimed that as a result of the economic downturn there are ten member states calling for a delay to steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
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