A hard-hitting report on climate change published by the British government recently has no basis in science or economics, OPEC?s Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said yestserday. The report written by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said that failure to tackle climate change could push world temperatures up by 5 degrees Celsius over the next century, causing severe floods and harsh droughts and uprooting many as 200 million people. Barkindo told an energy conference in Moscow that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ? which holds around two thirds of the world?s oil reserves ? opposed such research efforts. ?We find some of the so-called initiatives of the rich industrialised countries who are supposed to take the lead in combating climate change rather alarming,? he said. Stern?s report was welcomed by environmental activists as well Barkindo said it was misguided but he did not elaborate on possible solutions to the problem.