The scientist who raised the alarm about global warming two decades ago has said it would be better for the future of the planet and its inhabitants if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ends in failure.
James Hansen, the director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said any deal emerging from the negotiations would be disastrously flawed.
He told The Guardian: "I would rather it not happen if people accept this as being the right track - because it's a disaster track.
"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then (people) will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means."
The 68-year-old American scientist's efforts in the 1980s to raise awareness of the potentially catastrophic impact of rising temperatures saw him hailed as the "grandfather of global warming".
He is fiercely opposed to the "cap and trade" system favoured by the EU and other governments as the most efficient way to cut emissions.
In a separate interview with The Times, Dr Hansen said he planned to boycott the Copenhagen conference because governments were seeking an agreement to limit emissions through a cap and trade system, which allows pollution quotas to be bought and sold.
"They are selling indulgences there. The developed nations want to continue - basically business as usual - so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds," he said.
