Addressing the two-day forum's main topic -- the feasibility of sustainable development for billions of people worldwide -- Sachs painted a grim picture of systemic environmental collapse, coupled with war, famine and pandemic disease.

The astonishing pace of economic growth in Asia and the increasing demands of development in the industrialized world will in a matter of decades, Sachs argued, impose a burden far beyond that which the world is already woefully failing to carry.

"It is the central challenge we face on the planet," he said. "Every single major ecological system we have is already under profound stress."

While highlighting climate change, deforestation, oceanic degradation and population growth, Sachs, who is also director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, warned against viewing the problems associated with unsustainable development as esoteric issue for scientists.

"Politics is central," he said, condemning what he called the "scientifically antagonistic" policies of the current US administration under President George W. Bush.

"We're fighting all the wrong wars in this country," Sachs said, adding that what the White House really needed was a subscription to Scientific American magazine.

"Our political leaders do not have the training to understand these issues," he said, citing the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur which Sachs argued was primarily the result of water shortages that had prompted conflict.

"We view these crises first as political crises when we should view them as ecological crises," he said.

"And they will abound. They will get worse."

Mr Blair's suggestion that Britain was still hoping to lead the way on efforts to tackle global warming came despite the publication of a government report saying that Labour's own target for cutting carbon emissions may not be met.

The much-delayed climate change review, published by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs yesterday, predicted that carbon emissions would be reduced to only 15% or 18% of 1990 levels, instead of the 20% promised. High economic growth and the rise in global energy prices were blamed.

However, Britain is still on course to meet the Kyoto target of cutting carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2012.

Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, said the 20% target was still possible. "We believe we can reach the 20% target with support from all sections of the economy and society."

Environmental groups acc-used the government of caving in to short-term pressures.

Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "This pathetic strategy will not deliver the government's promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010 and will further undermine the prime minister's reputation on this issue."

A technological revolution is needed if the world is to tackle climate change, Tony Blair said yesterday.

During a visit to New Zealand, the prime minister said hi-tech innovations in the private sector were vital in tackling the problems of security of energy supply and rising greenhouse gases.

He also told a climate change conference in Wellington that Britain wanted to exceed its commitments under the international Kyoto agreement on climate change.

Mr Blair's suggestion that Britain was still hoping to lead the way on efforts to tackle global warming came despite the publication of a government report saying that Labour's own target for cutting carbon emissions may not be met.

The much-delayed climate change review, published by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs yesterday, predicted that carbon emissions would be reduced to only 15% or 18% of 1990 levels, instead of the 20% promised. High economic growth and the rise in global energy prices were blamed.

However, Britain is still on course to meet the Kyoto target of cutting carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2012.

Margaret Beckett, the environment secretary, said the 20% target was still possible. "We believe we can reach the 20% target with support from all sections of the economy and society."

Environmental groups acc-used the government of caving in to short-term pressures.

Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "This pathetic strategy will not deliver the government's promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010 and will further undermine the prime minister's reputation on this issue."

The storm, ranked in the most powerful grade for cyclones, category five, was about 335 km (210 miles) north of the town of Port Hedland and moving south along the coast, the Tropical Cyclone Warning Center said.

"Tomorrow's really the day where things could happen," said forecaster Adam Conroy from the center in Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

The remote Pilbara region under threat is home to around 10,000 people and includes Woodside Petroleum's A$14 billion ($10 billion) North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) project at Karratha, about 700 km (440 miles) north of Perth.

"Residents of the central and west Pilbara coast are warned of the risk of very destructive winds with gusts exceeding 250 km per hour during Thursday as this very dangerous cyclone nears the coast," the Bureau of Meteorology said on its Web site (www.bom.gov.au).

Australia's northeastern coast was devastated last week by another category five storm, Cyclone Larry. It blew roofs off houses, uprooted trees and decimated sugar and banana crops, causing damage worth up to A$1.5 billion ($1 billion).

Woodside said on Wednesday that it had suspended production at its 100,000-barrel-per-day Cossack oilfield in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as the sixth cyclone of the season approached.

Oil and gas producer Santos Ltd. shut its 40,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mutineer-Exeter oil field on Monday and BHP Billiton's 10,600 bpd Griffin oil field has been closed since Saturday, after it was threatened by a smaller storm.

Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto both have operations in the Pilbara, which is home to large deposits of iron ore.

Rio said its port operations at Dampier and Cape Lambert had shut and ships had gone out to sea, while BHP said it was loading its last ship and port operations at Port Hedland would close shortly.

Rio said on Tuesday bad weather meant the company would fall 5 million tonnes short of its first-quarter iron ore output target. It still expected 2006 output to rise 14 percent on last year's 158 million tonnes.

"Today the population stands around 200,000 to 225,000 people in New Orleans," said Orleans Parish Homeland Security Advisor Terry Ebbert. "Our goal is to ensure that we create an environment where it makes more sense to leave than to stay,"

"We want all 225,000 people to get out of the city," he said. Before Katrina, New Orleans had nearly half a million residents, but many who fled the storm have not returned.

Ebbert spoke at a news conference after state and local officials met with Federal Emergency Management Agency acting director David Paulison to discuss plans for the next hurricane season, which starts June 1.

Officials plan to have only small shelters available for police and rescue workers and will not open the Superdome, the site of mass misery when stranded Katrina victims crowded into the dank and damaged stadium and waited days for rescue.

Ebbert said evacuations could come early and often this year because the levee system protecting New Orleans was weakened by Katrina and there are thousands of people now living in FEMA-provided travel trailers.

Residents will be ordered out not just for hurricanes, but for tropical storms, too, he said.

Paulison estimated that by June 1, 100,000 families along the U.S. Gulf Coast will be in trailers, which are vulnerable in high winds.

He said FEMA, which has been heavily criticized for its response to Katrina, would do whatever state and local officials cannot do to prepare for hurricanes.

"The locals and state are putting together the process of identifying what they can and cannot do. We're looking at where we can fit in to help," he said.

The storm ripped off roofs in the southern district of Harburg and overturned several cars.

Some 300,000 people in Hamburg spent the night without power and at least one hospital had to resort to using its generators. Rail and metro service was also interrupted for a few hours.

A spokesman for the power company Vattenfall said "an unfortunate chain of several events" was responsible for the outage.

The tornado ripped the tin roof off a boatyard, sending it flying 50 meters (150 feet) through the air and leading two power cables to short circuit.

Electricity was restored Tuesday morning.

Vilama Calera may be another unappreciated 'supervolcano' (like Yellowstone) hidden in a mega-volcano nursery, dubbed the Eduardo Avaroa Caldera Complex in the tri-section of Argentine, Bolivia and Chile.

Geologist Miguel M. Soler of the National University of Jujuy in San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina, said: "Vilama Caldera formed during a single event that emitted approximately 2000 cubic kilometres (almost 500 cubic miles) of pyroclastic material."

Ash volume and pyroclastic material, called ignimbrites, produced by the 8.4 million-year-old eruption, and the size of the associated caldera, put it among the world's largest known eruptions.

"In contrast, for example, Yellowstone produced its important volumes of ignimbrites and lavas in three cataclysmic events." Soler says.

"Eruptions at 2.0, 1.3, and 0.6 million years ago ejected huge volumes of rhyolite magma, and each formed a caldera and extensive layers of thick pyroclastic flow deposits," he adds.

Scientists believe that the Vilama Caldera could have been created when a ten by 24 mile layer collapsed on a chamber of molten rock or magma with explosive results, causing vast amounts of ignimbrites out in many directions.

The huge layer, or roof, collapse is what all large calderas have in common and what separates them from smaller 'single vent' volcanic eruptions like Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo.

"But that's where the similarities with Yellowstone end," says Soler.

Magma under Yellowstone is thought to be created by the melting of ancient crust under North America where Vilama's magma could have been created by a more complex melting of the crust caused by the South American Plate colliding and overriding the Nazca Plate to the west.

"Much remains unknown about Vilama Caldera," says Soler, "Largely because it is a terribly difficult caldera to study."

"Among the other calderas in the region that need to be studied in detail and which in all cases are also certainly 'supervolcanoes' are Cerro Guacha, Coruto, Pastos Grandes, and Capina," Soler adds.

Soler will present his work on Vilama supervolcano on Monday, 3 April at the Backbone of Americas – Patagonia to Alaska meeting co-convened by the Geological Society of America and the Asociación Geológica Argentina, with collaboration of the Sociedad Geológica de Chile.

Ichapur is close to western Maharashtra state's Jalgaon district, where India's first bird flu outbreak was reported from last month.

There have still been no reported cases of the virus in humans in India.

Veterinary commissioner of Madhya Pradesh Rajesh Rajora told the BBC that the slaughtering of the birds will begin on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of birds were destroyed in Maharashtra after India's first bird flu outbreak last month.

The state has identified over 10 cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain so far - all in Jalgaon district. The latest cases were reported on Tuesday after tests on old samples.

The virus later spread to some poultry farms in the neighbouring Gujarat state.

There have still been no reported cases of the virus in humans in India - 95 samples collected from people with flu-like symptoms last month tested negative for bird flu.

Fears

The detection of bird flu in India last month led to sharp falls in the sale of poultry and poultry products.

India's parliament, military, railways and major airlines temporarily stopped serving chicken and eggs, despite government reassurances that they were safe to eat if cooked properly.

The virus does not at present pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.

However since 2004 about 100 people have died of the H5N1 strain - most of then in South-East Asia.

Experts fear the virus could mutate to gain this ability, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

"Under the (previous) government, we were going backwards. We were going away from the Kyoto targets," said the Conservative prime minister, whose election in January ended 12 years of Liberal Party rule.

"I don't think the previous government left us with a lot that we can really build on."

Earlier, Canada was flagged in a UN report on global warming as high on a list of countries that ratified the accord to most likely run into difficulty implementing its commitments.

In 2003, Canada had increased its emissions by 24.2 percent from the base 1990 level, far from its 2012 target of a six percent reduction, according to the report published in November 2005.