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PARIS (Reuters) - The world's top climate scientists said on Friday global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to prevent severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures.

The United Nations panel, which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years.

The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

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LONDON (AFP) - A right-wing American think tank is offering 10,000 dollars (7,700 euros) to scientists and economists to dispute a climate change report set to be released by the UN's top scientific panel, media reported.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which receives funding from oil giant ExxonMobil according to the Guardian, sent letters to scientists in the United States, Britain and elsewhere offering the payments in exchange for articles emphasising the shortcoming of the UN's report.

AEI also reportedly offered additional payments, and to reimburse travel expenses.

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WASHINGTON - Despite a strongly worded global warming report from the world's top climate scientists, the Bush administration expressed continued opposition Friday to mandatory reductions in heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" — including job losses — that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

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EXXONMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, the world's two biggest oil companies, have posted bumper profits as gains in production softened the blow of declining oil prices.

Exxon's full-year profit for 2006 of $US39.5 billion ($A51.1 billion), was the highest in US history.

Shell also made history, posting a (current cost of supply) profit of $US25.4 billion for 2006, which was a 12 per cent increase for the year and a UK corporate record.

Exxon's full-year revenue was almost $US378 billion, larger than the economy of Switzerland, the seventeenth-largest economy in the world.