Rising temperatures will increasingly threaten security, health and food supplies, and exacerbate poverty and damage species and habitats, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked Western lifestyles for causing climate change that is "pushing the environment towards crisis".
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Dr Rowan Williams said: "Rich, industrialised countries, including our own, have unquestionably contributed most to atmospheric pollution.
"Both our present lifestyle and the industrial history of how we created such possibilities for ourselves have to bear the responsibility for pushing the environment in which we live towards crisis.”
On Monday, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is due to publish its latest study on the consequences of the predicted rise in global temperatures.
The UN wants to show the opportunities to engage with the challenges that climate change will bring to produce a more stable economy.
The chances of 'severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts' from global warming are increasing say experts in an influential new UN report.