Scientist Sir John Houghton has called on Christians to take action to save the planet.

Speaking at the latest in a series of debates on faith and development, he said there was a “moral imperative” for the Western world to address dangerous climate change.

“There is an inescapable moral imperative in the rich world that we can take the first action,” he said.

Sir Houghton said it was important that wealthy nations not only reduce their carbon emissions “as fast as we can”, but that they also help poorer nations to adapt.

“We’ve got to be prepared to share our work and skills with them,” he said.

Sir Houghton also emphasised the need to share aid and trade around the world, saying that most of the wealth currently flowed from poor nations to the rich.

He said the Old Testament story of Joseph – in which he interprets Pharoah’s dream to predict a famine and stores up grain in preparation - showed that “God really cares about the people in the world”, and stressed that God was the “God of science”.

The world, he warned, has seven years to peak and reduce its carbon emissions in order to achieve a zero carbon society by 2050.

“It is affordable,” Sir Houghton insisted. “We say so much to do it but is there the will to do it?”

He said there was much faith communities could do to reach local communities already feeling the impact of climate change, like setting up twinning arrangements with between towns in wealthy and developing countries.

Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence Magazine, approached the climate change debate from a different angle in his address, declaring that climate change and global warming were merely a symptom of a deeper root.

“Climate change and global warming is not a problem. It is only a symptom of societies,” he said. “Humanity has separated, disconnected itself from nature. It has come to believe that nature is ‘out there’ … We think all Earth is a resource so we can do what we like.”

Mr Kumar said mankind had to change from an arrogant, ego-centric perspective to an eco-centric worldview.

He said: “We have to see that the Earth is sacred and we are not the owners of the Earth.”