President Donald Trump says he plans to review the UN report that warns of global warming-caused chaos unless drastic action is taken - although he says he's skeptical of its authors.

'It was given to me and I want to look at who drew it, which group drew it,' Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, as he left for an Iowa campaign rally.

'Because I can give you reports that are fabulous and I can give you reports that aren't so good,' he said. 'But I'll be looking at it, absolutely.'

President Donald Trump says he plans to review the UN report that warns of global warming-caused chaos unless drastic action is taken - although he says he's skeptical of its authors.

The landmark report released Monday said that time is running out to avert climate-induced disaster.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) declared it had 'high confidence' in its predictions.

But as of Tuesday evening, Trump said he has not read it yet.

It was Trump's first reaction to the report, which says that the Earth surface has warmed one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and is on track toward an unliveable 3C or 4C rise.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas attends a news conference after the release of the report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, October 8

The Trump administration has dismantled emissions reduction policies domestically, and vowed to ditch the Paris treaty on attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. However, Washington did not obstruct the report, as some had expected.

Many in Trump's Republican party are self-described climate change skeptics, questioning whether the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world about manmade causes for ever-rising temperatures is accurate.

The UN's landmark report warned that the world has just 12 years to halt global warming before the planet is plunged into extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty.

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people, scientists found.

However, they provide little hope humanity will rise to the challenge.

Overall, the Earth has to reduce the amount of CO2 produced each year by 45 per cent by 2030 – and reduce CO2 production to zero by 2050.

In order to reach this, society will need to make 'unprecedented' changes including closing hundreds of coal-fired power stations and rapidly switching to renewable energy.

Limiting global warming to 1.5C will cost the world $2.4 trillion every year for the next two decades, the UN report warns.

A landmark report by the UN has warned that the world has just 12 years to halt global warming. Use of coal needs to fall from around 38 per cent to 'close to 0 per cent' by 2050, the report found (stock image)

The dramatic report warned that the planet is currently heading to warm by 3C - and to slash that to less than 1.5C as laid out in the Paris agreement will require 'rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society'.

WHAT STEPS NEED TO HAPPEN TO LIMIT WARMING TO 1.5C? The dramatic report warned that the planet is currently heading to warm by 3C. To slash that to less than 1.5C as laid out in the Paris agreement will require 'rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society'. Scientists say humanity must make the following changes - 1. Global emissions of CO2 must decline by 45 per cent from 2010 to 2030. 2. Renewables need to provide 85 per cent of global electricity by 2050. 3. Use of coal needs to be reduced to close to zero 4. Seven million sq km of land will be given over to energy crops 5. By 2050 net emissions need to be zero. Advertisement

Scientists have said the impacts of climate change, from droughts to rising seas, will be less extreme if temperature rises are curbed at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels than if they climb to 2C, the UN-backed study said.

Pre-industrial levels refers to the climate before the industrial revolution when greenhouse gas emissions were stable. Since the mid-1800s the climate has already warmed by 1C.

At the current rate of global warming, the world's temperatures are set to increase by another 1.5C between 2030 and 2052.

To stop this happening, the world will need to make 'unprecedented' changes in power generation, industry, transport, buildings and potential shifts in lifestyle such as eating less meat, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.

It will also require a vast ramp-up in renewables so they generate 70-85 per cent of electricity supplies by 2050, while use of coal needs to fall from around 38 per cent to 'close to 0 per cent' by 2050.

This latest report – backed by the United Nations – says the scale of the challenge is vast and will be expensive to carry out.

To illustrate how far off this is, CO2 levels rose about 3 per cent a year between 2000 and 2013, and by about 0.4 per cent a year between 2013 and 2016.

Much of the slowdown since 2016 was driven by a combination in reductions by the US and China.

However, that changed in 2017 with a 1.4 per cent increase in emissions from China.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.