LOWLAND areas of Britain, including London, will need to build new sea defences or they will be swamped in the not-too-distant future by sea levels 15ft higher than they are today, according to new research.

The melting of the Western Antarctica ice sheet would cause havoc to the world’s ecosystems, Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, said.

Research showed that Antarctica, the frozen continent once called a sleeping giant, could become a “giant awakened”, he said.

It had been thought that the collapse of the Antarctic ice caps would be small, but the first evidence of severe melting could be evident here within 100 years.

If all the ice in East Anarctica melted, the average global sea level would rise about 157ft — although there is no evidence nor suggestion that this will happen.

However, in West Antarctica, which is much smaller, there are signs of destabilisation of the ice sheet which could lead to a 15ft rise in sea levels.

There is also melting in the Antarctic peninsula and Professor Rapley said that of 400 mountain glaciers in the area about 75 per cent were retreating.

The news has alarmed the scientific community because events in parts of Anarctica are happening much faster than had previously been predicted.

The presentation was made yesterday to 200 scientists at the start of a three-day international conference on climate change organised by the Government to provide the basis of discussions for this summer’s G8 summit of wealth-producing nations, chaired by Britain.

Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, made clear that she had “no doubt” that human activity was contributing to climate warming and gave warning that only international co-operation could prevent more serious future temperature rises.

She said that further climate change was “virtually inevitable”, with average world temperatures predicted to rise between 1.5C and 6C this century. The Government believes that climate change is now unstoppable and is lobbying hard for the United States to sign up to vital cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Mrs Beckett called on Washington to become more involved, although she said she believed that there was no hope of President Bush signing up to the Kyoto Agreement. This comes into force on February 16 and aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions by developed countries by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The imperative now, she said, was to persuade the Bush Administration and US citizens to examine what they should do after 2012.

Britain is committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. She accepted that there were problems with emissions from transport, particularly aviation, and that experts were looking to see if reductions could be made by technological advances.

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