The territorial government is preparing itself for one of the largest challenges now facing Yukoners: climate change.

Premier Dennis Fentie says he raised the issue of climate change and its effect on Yukoners with members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet in a visit to Ottawa earlier this month.

'I met with several members of (Harper's) cabinet on this and other issues and I'm satisfied that they are prepared to act,' Fentie said in a recent interview.

While southern Canadians, and other industrialized nations, have to work on reducing emissions harmful to the environment, he said, Yukoners have to continue to plan on how to deal with the problem that's already affecting the territory's environment, economy and population.

'We experience today the impacts of global warming. This is of the utmost priority; it's very serious,' he said.

'We provide very little in the way of emissions but we experience today the impacts of a global phenomenon,' the premier said.

'The Yukon will continue to adapt and change while the rest of the world cuts back on their greenhouse gas emissions.'

An expanding problem with beetle infestations in territorial forests, receding glaciers and the breakdown of Yukon infrastructure are just some of the examples of what the territory is facing, the premier said.

'We are already addressing this issue,' Fentie said, explaining that energy-efficient infrastructure projects are being built with climate change in mind.

Northern Climate ExChange co-ordinator David Westlake said he agrees with Fentie that the time has come to act on climate change.

'The North is on the frontline of climate change. It's time to move on to action; it's already having significant impacts.'

He said precipitation patterns and the witnessing of a funnel cloud touching down in the territory in 2005 are cause for concern.

Other examples, he added, include: glacier melt and permafrost melt; later freeze-ups and earlier melts, leading to massive hydrological shifts; and the beetle infestation.

Westlake also said he felt it was important for people to distinguish between global warming and climate change, as the two terms are not interchangeable.

'Global warming just implies the planet is warming. Climate change is the change of climate patterns displayed by things such as extreme weather events,' he said.

Westlake said the problem of climate change was addressed in a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ICPP) forum in Paris on Feb. 2.

The ICPP's report was produced by approximately 600 authors from 40 countries and was reviewed by more than 113 governments around the world.

The ICPP was established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program to evaluate the risk of climate change brought on by humans.

The ICPP report is based primarily on published scientific and technical literature.

The report states the surface temperature of the world is rising and is largely attributed to the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use.

'Eleven of the last 12 years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850),' a summary of the report states.

'The linear warming trend over the last 50 years is nearly twice that for the last 100 years.'

The report also states that:

oceans are absorbing heat, causing water to expand and sea levels to rise;

mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres, further adding to the rise in sea levels;

average Arctic temperatures rose at almost twice the global average rate in the last 100 years;

temperatures at the top of the permafrost level have generally increased since the 1980s;

the maximum area covered by seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about seven per cent since 1900;

widespread changes in extreme temperatures have been observed over the last 50 years with cold days, cold nights and frost becoming less frequent while hot days, hot nights and heat waves becoming more frequent; and

evidence of increased cyclone activity.

'For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2 C is projected ....' the report states.