Joining forces at a conference in London, Bangladesh and Britain called on nations to thrash out a new global warming agreement in Copenhagen next year to achieve a comprehensive deal to prevent rapid climate change.

Britain's International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander warned that the lives of millions of people in Bangladesh will be devastated unless urgent action is taken to tackle climate change and cut emissions.

"Climate change is today's crisis, not tomorrow's risk, and is already affecting millions of people in Bangladesh," Alexander said, while praising the country's "innovative approach to adapting to the changing climate.

"But adaptation on the ground is not enough. We believe more must be done at a global level," he said.

"This is why today the UK and Bangladesh are announcing a new partnership calling for a comprehensive deal in Copenhagen, leading to the stabilisation of greenhouse gases at a level that avoids dangerous climate change -- and benefits some of the world's poorest people."

Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. Experts say it is experiencing more rainfall, flooding and droughts, as well as cyclones as a direct result of global warming.

Last year widespread flooding and a devastating cyclone caused crop and infrastructure damage worth 2.8 billion dollars -- around four percent of Bangladesh's gross domestic product -- according to a World Bank study.

Bangladesh's army-backed authorities said the very existence of the country was at stake.

Environment secretary A.H.M Rezaul Kabir told AFP that a study by the World Bank, leading donors and the Bangladeshi government had found the country urgently needed huge amounts of money to ensure its survival.

"We need at least four billion dollars at least by 2020 to build dams, cyclone shelters, plant trees along the coast and build infrastructure and capacities to adapt to increasing number of natural disasters," Kabir said.

Bangladesh wants rich nations to pay the billions of dollars it says it needs to help fight the effects of climate change because they are the biggest polluters.

"We hope Western countries will grant the money as compensation for being the biggest carbon emitters," Kabir said. "They are responsible for our woes and the increasing number of the disasters that befall on us.

"In London, we will show where we are vulnerable and present our strategy to fight the greater number of floods, cyclones, a rise in sea levels crop losses," he said.

Alexander said the new 75 million pound (93 million euro, 130 million dollar) aid pledge would help Bangladesh "protect its people further from impacts such as rising sea-levels, water-logged land and increased salinity."

The Bangladeshi authorities this year launched a 44-million-dollar fund dedicated solely to fighting the problems that the country faces as a result of climate change.

The Nobel Prize winning United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts rising sea levels will devour 17 percent of Bangladesh's total land mass by 2050, leaving at least 20 million people homeless.

James Hansen, director of the US-based NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, paints an even gloomier picture, forecasting the entire nation will be under water by the end of the 21st century.

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