Gore, Pharrell announce global Live Earth climate concert in June

DAVOS, Switzerland - A Live Earth music event to demand action on climate change will be held on June 18 across seven continents, including Antarctica, former US Vice-President Al Gore and pop star Pharrell Williams announced on Wednesday.

Seven concerts will be held in cities across the world, including Paris and New York in what will be the largest event of its type ever staged, Gore said. "The purpose is to have a billion voices with one message, to demand climate action now," Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his campaigning on climate change, told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Governments agreed last month in Lima on the building blocks of a new-style global deal to combat climate change amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit increases in global temperatures. But most of the hard decisions postponed until talks to be held in Paris in December.

Gore said the urgent case for action was highlighted by studies last week from two US government agencies showing 2014 was Earth's hottest on record, fuelling a devastating series of extreme storms.

The 10 warmest years since records began in the 19th century have all been since 1997, the US data showed.