DAVOS, Switzerland (AP)--The U.N. climate chief predicted Wednesday that the world will reach the goal of cutting global-warming gases 50% by 2050 and said the U.S. economic meltdown should spur governments to take bolder action in confronting climate change.

But Yvo de Boer added that governments must move away from taking "small incremental steps" that won't achieve the goal and change direction - as Norway did this month with the announcement that it will become "carbon neutral" by 2030.

Others warned that the technology to cut emissions still needs to be developed.

De Boer, who presided over last month's U.N. climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, said nations can't be driven away from their agreement to adopt a blueprint for fighting global warming by 2009 because of the U.S. financial turmoil.

"This is the time to be bold and really push through," he said, adding that some people "are going to suffer pain and other people are going to gain."

De Boer spoke to two reporters after moderating a panel at the World Economic Forum on climate change that included several energy company executives and Rajendra Pachauri, the chief U.N. climate scientist who chairs the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change which shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. vice president Al Gore.

"We have the International Energy Agency telling us that if we continue with business as usual then greenhouse gas emissions will go up by 50% whereas Pachauri is telling us emissions need to go down by 50%," de Boer said.

He then asked the panel members whether they believed a 50% reduction would be achieved, or whether governments would "focus on short-term and lock us into technologies that will not get us to 50%."

James E. Rogers, chairman and chief executive of Duke Energy Corp. (DUK), one of the largest U.S. electric power companies, said he was "cautiously optimistic that we're able to achieve the objective of 50% reduction by 2050, but the key to that optimism is really investment in technology, because that's what's going to drive it."

In the short term to 2025, however, he said carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise "because the technology is not going to be available," particularly for coal "which is such a key driver of emissions of CO2" in India, China and the U.S.

Pachauri agreed that "technology is the key - but technology by itself will not work unless we have an enabling policy framework that makes technology effective and helps to disseminate it on a large-scale."

"I would like to submit that a price on carbon is going to be absolutely essential, and that's something which governments have been a little reluctant to deal with head on," he said.

Norway, for example, says it will become carbon neutral by cutting carbon dioxide emissions and buying carbon credits in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries.

With the "depressing" economic news, Pachauri said, "there might be the temptation to just cast aside what one sees as long-term problems." But he recalled that when the first "oil price shock" took place, in the early 1970s, " it was also a period when major steps were taken to bring about energy efficiency."

"I think what we have today is an opportunity whereby through addressing the immediate short-term economic problem, we might also be able to address the longer-term problem of climate change," he said.

"There is no time to lose," Pachauri stressed. "The impacts of climate change are very serious" with between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa expected to suffer from "water stress" by 2020 along with declining agriculture and threats to food security.

Tulsi Tanti, chairman and managing director of Suzlon Energy in India, agreed with Pachauri that "the key message is a global policy framework is needed."

He said a 50% reduction can be achieved if developed countries focus on energy conservation and efficiency and developing countries diversify their energy supplies and increase their use of renewable sources including solar and wind power.

But Christian Mumenthaler, chief risk officer at Swiss Reinsurance Co., the world's largest reinsurer, cautioned that "from everything we have today, I think it will be extremely tough to meet the minus 50% target."

"The big question mark is what we don't know today, and that is the technology. If there was a big shift in technology, something that would grow exponentially somehow, you might be able to close the gap," he said.

De Boer agreed that "there's still far too much complacency, that far too many people are still saying that, 'Ah, the technology will kick in, and we don't really need to confront this in a serious way today."'

"I see this ritual love dance in climate change politics where people talk about where the world needs to be in 2050. They talk about where emissions need to peak, but the difficult bit in between, where do you want to be in 2020, 2030, nobody's willing to talk about," he said.

Nonetheless, de Boer said, "I think the 50% will be reached, and I think that 50% will be reached if governments move away from these small incremental steps ... to announce a broad change of direction."

Duke Energy's Rogers said he believes "in the United States there's a sense of urgency and the need to act now."

"At the end of the day what the world needs is an arms race on what country can become the most energy efficient," he said.

De Boer said the world also needs "a Marshall Plan on climate change for developing countries" which should start with the U.S. Treasury putting billions of dollars into a technology fund, perhaps with the U.K. and Japan.

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