There is a terrible irony implicit in the challenge posed by climate change; Man's scientific genius and ingenuity have brought the planet to near-boiling point, yet those same traits are our best hope of cleaning up the mess. Today some of the greatest minds at work in this overheating world are meeting in London to discuss the looming environmental disaster.

The St James's Palace Symposium of Nobel Laureates is bringing together climate change experts, business leaders and Nobel laureates drawn from a range of disciplines. The laudable aim of the symposium is to bring a breadth of wisdom and experience to bear on the challenges posed by global warming.

In December world leaders will agree to a new United Nations climate change treaty in Copenhagen, to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Copenhagen represents a real opportunity to create a new global consensus. But it could equally be a failure as environmental idealism meets realpolitik and melts away. The next months will mark a frenzy of diplomatic wrangling, of horse trading in targets, and games of one-upmanship. Alongside this, it is crucial that a non-partisan and intellectual response to the crisis is given all possible encouragement.

The interdisciplinary nature of the Symposium of Nobel Laureates is its strength; this is a problem that will not be solved in isolation. Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the symposium, argues in today's paper that there can be no action unless worldwide public opinion makes a priority of tackling climate change. For this to happen, we must demand much of our scientists, our economists, our politicians, our writers and ourselves.

We need our scientists to lay out, brutally if necessary, the scale of the problem. And we need them to apply all their ingenuity and inventiveness to the putative technological responses to the climate change. The best hope for man will be found in a laboratory, not on a soapbox.

But we also need economists. At present, it is too easy to see capitalism and environmentalism as natural enemies. Yet it is only by harnessing the power of capitalism, by finding a way of painting the age-old and inescapable laws of supply and demand green, that we will find sustainability. Man's story is one of the pursuit of, and defence of, natural resources and riches. An economic template based solely on a self-denying frugality that goes against Man's nature will not provide a lasting solution to the problem.

The Nobel committee also awards a peace prize. We will need politicians of the calibre of previous winners of this prize, such as Nelson Mandela. One nightmarish scenario painted by the prophets of climate doom is the fragmenting of the world into vicious, warlike states, fighting for the world's dwindling resources. We need politicians capable of creating and sustaining a consensus. Copenhagen will test their mettle.

The war on climate change needs its poets. Hearts must be won and minds changed; jargon and sloganeering cannot speak to the hearts of the unconvinced. Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, will present his most apposite poem to the symposium. These lines must resonate there:

“Fruits then to your lips: haste to repay

The debt of birth.”