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And Mr Rudd has proposed a “transformation” of the US-China relationship, arguing the two should co-lead a “new strategic deal” aimed at resolving tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Mr Rudd said while it was a “very hard call” for China to curb its emissions the “mathematics and science” of the planet demanded action and warned of huge consequences, including extreme weather events and the loss of arable land, if there is no change.

Mr Rudd made the comments appearing alongside former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson to discuss “Asia and the World Order” at a forum in New York.

“Climate change threatens all of us, it threatens China, it threatens America and it threatens Australia,” he warned.

The former Labor leader – who in 2007 declared climate change “the greatest moral challenge of our generation” – told the audience that if the concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere exceeded 450ppm (parts per million), “four thousand humourless guys in white coats” have concluded that we run a “huge risk of irreversible climate change”.

He outlined the former Labor government’s success in introducing a carbon tax but said the conservatives were about to repeal it in Australia.  Prime Minister Tony Abbott successfully unwound Labor’s carbon price in July.

Mr Rudd said the Chinese view that the Western economies had unfairly been allowed to grow its economies until they were “drunk” on “energy and cheap carbon” was legitimate. But he said “mathematics dictates” there is a “finite quantum” of greenhouse gases humans can pump into the air.

“Based on that, our friends in China need to work on what ultimately becomes China’s own carbon ceiling, now that’s hard stuff, because China is late in the development curve,” he said.

“But if China gets this right, then the planet’s got a reasonable future, if it doesn’t get this right, I don’t think we’ve begun to think through the broad implications for the planet and the world about going past 450ppm,” he said.

He warned that drifting pollution from China across Japan, Korea and the United States would open up new foreign policy challenges………

Mr Rudd envisioned the package comprising the removal of nuclear weapons from the north, a form of “political coexistence between the two sides of the peninsula” and an American troop withdrawal from the Chinese border.

“You might say that’s all too hard, three of four years ago it was too hard but I think smart people in both capitals begin to think about this,” he said.

Mr Rudd said while he understood Washington’s “preoccupation with the Middle East” the world should not underestimate the significance of a non-English speaking and non-democratic economy set to overtake America’s as the world’s biggest.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kevin-rudd-warns-of-climate-change-consequences-at-us-forum-20140912-10fy66.html#ixzz3DEvbrgfx