"There is a realisation that we've got to do something fast, an energy transition at a rate that we have never seen before.

"This will have a huge impact not just on governments making decisions, but everyone will have to think about the way we live."

Asked if governments were moving fast enough on action to affect climate change, Dr Foley answered in the negative before calling for a dramatic increase in carbon reduction.

"At the moment the requirement is we need to be reducing by 16 megatons of carbon a year, we are doing two, we need to increase by eight times"