BRUSSELS, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) opens a five-day meeting here on Monday to finalize a report on the impact of global warming, especially the impact for poor countries and on species diversity.

    Unless actions are taken to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, climate change will result in increasing poverty, a paucity of drinking water, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, and a host of vanishing species by mid-century, said the panel, which is a network of more than 2,000 scientists.

    "A decade ago, climate impact was largely hypothetical. But now, that's no longer a question," said James J. McCarthy, an oceanographer from Harvard University, who was also one of the main authors of the 2001 IPCC report.

    By 2080, it is likely that 1.1 to 3.2 billion people worldwide will experience water scarcity, 200 to 600 million will be threatened by hunger, and each year an additional two to seven million people will be victims of coastal flooding. And the problems will fall on the world's poorest inhabitants, according to a summary released by IPCC on Monday.

    Hundreds of millions of people living in poor countries, such as Egypt, Vietnam and Bangladesh, are likely to find themselves wedged between rising sea levels and more frequent flooding. The impact will be all the more devastating because most of those countries lack the money and skills to adapt to the threat, said the summary.

    The 50-page summary will be submitted to the meeting, and on Friday the final report must be adopted by consensus among the diplomats from 124 countries attending the meeting, with the approval of the 50 scientists who compiled the report. It will then become a guideline for governments to determine policies and draft legislation.

    It is the second of four reports by the IPCC. The first, issued in February, updated the science of climate change, concluding with near certainty that global warming is caused by human activity.