BRUSSELS, Belgium -- From increased hunger to extinction of species, an international global warming conference report warns climate change poses major threats to the planet and humankind.

Related: Download The IPCC Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change document represents the work of about 2,500 scientists examining 29,000 sets of data collected over the past five years.

"For the first time we are not just arm-waving with models," said Martin Perry, who conducted the grueling negotiations between scientists and representatives of different governments around the world, including the United States.

This year's series of reports by the IPCC were the first in six years from the prestigious body, which formed in 1988.

The new report is the second of four reports from the IPCC this year; the first report in February laid out the scientific case for how global warming is happening.

The second report explains what the effects of global warming will be.

The final documents were the result of a contentious marathon session that saw angry exchanges between diplomats, and the scientists who drafted the report, chairman Rajendra Pachauri said. More than 120 nations attended the meeting.

Despite accusations by scientists that the report has been watered down, it's the clearest and most comprehensive scientific statement to date on the impact of global warming mainly caused by human-induced carbon dioxide pollution, he said.

The United States, China and Saudi Arabia raised many of the objections to the phrasing, often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections.

Related: Download The IPCC Report

Still, Sharon Hays, of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the U.S. delegation leader, said in a teleconference that the report shows the environment is being affected by changes in the climate. Civilization must adapt to those changes, she said.

Among the report's conclusions:

• Areas in drought will become even more dry, adding to the risks of hunger and disease.
• The world will face heightened threats of flooding, severe storms and the erosion of coastlines.
• North America will experience more severe weather and weather-related events -- hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires -- with human and economic loss. Crop yields may increase by 5 percent to 20 percent from a longer growing season, but will plummet if temperatures rise by 7.2 degrees.
• By 2020, up to 250 million people in Africa are likely to be exposed to water shortages. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries and regions is projected to be severely compromised by climate variability and change.
• Europe will see its Alpine glaciers disappear completely. The Austrian Alpine Association measured 105 of Austria's 925 glaciers last year and found they had already receded by an average of 52½ feet, with one of the sheets shrinking a dramatic 262 feet during 2006.
• Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose most of its live coral, putting other marine species and the country's eastern coastline at risk.
• Freshwater availability in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia particularly in large river basins is projected to decrease due to climate change which, along with population growth and increasing demand arising from higher standards of living, could adversely affect more than a billion people by the 2050s.
• By mid-century, increases in temperature and associated decreases in Latin American soil water are projected to lead to gradual replacement of tropical forest by savanna in eastern Amazonia. Semi-arid vegetation will tend to be replaced by arid-land vegetation.